Hey all,
My name is Mayank, and this is my view on what does the Local Guides program mean to me.
Apart from all the goodies that I got on reaching the level 5 and the free google drive storage that use to be provided back in the day (oh I need it so bad).
My reasons and point of view for the guides program is a little unusual as I do not seek the already mentioned good, I seek the bad. Let me explain.
Back when I was first introduced to google services (apart from gmail) in 2011 via my first android smartphone, my main use of it was like an address book and the navigator. I use to call it “The Optimus” (LG Optimus Net). The experience was good not so great, I thought it lacked something and that’s why switched to the Nokia Lumia 625 (Lumineer), the HERE maps were good but not the best and it too had all the ways and information but the same sense of incompleteness surrounded me.
That’s when due to turn of certain events,
- Lack of certain apps in windows app store (R.I.P windows phone) and
- Also the so so so expensive price of luxurious iphone made me comeback for the google suite.
This is when I first noticed something, the local guides program which aimed to bring all the fellow guides together and share their views and experiences was doing it’s job but there was one thing that was missing.
All of us were talking about the good and great of where we went but what about people like me who wants to share the bad and ugly too. For some time I hated the idea of spreading the news and sharing the reviews of a place too because all I could think was that this was no justice to the person reading the review right now and for the ones who will seek to it in the near future.
My goal was simple “To show the other side of the coin” even if it means to be the so called prophet of the doom (yes the MARVEL kind) and constantly being nagged by my peers and co-conspirators (friends).
This is when I started using all the available social media platforms for one thing and one thing only “The Dark Reviews” (yes exactly like the DC Universe) and hell I was met my lots and lots of resistance. From workplace to home it was no longer about even being with the right information. It was about educating people. People hate when they are presented with the facts that oppose their general sense of operation. They simply cannot accept that some of their favorite things just plainly SUCK!
Along with that, most of the reviews on the maps were not even reviews they were one liners with 5 star rating that was mostly published by people who don’t give a F.
My question to you is that we are so concerned about what our loved ones are eating (organic/processed), with whom s/he is & what they are doing, that we missed the most basic thing
- “Where is s/he ?”
- “Is that place even safe ?”
- “Does that place actually is what it claims to be ?”
- “Hell if that place even physically exists apart from being on a digital platform ? (cuz we all know google that is possible
)”
Being the country with one of the largest population in the world and with ever increasing number of connected users it is time to stop using internet lightly because what we put out there it stays.
- It can be a review or
- a fake forward that someone can take too seriously
So please stop using the Maps just as a navigator or the review section for the name sake,
- Open the reviews section,
- Read them and
- If you’ve been there then post that one good and bad thing that you think must be known by the visitors (be it lack of amenities or point out the lack of connectivity in the off hours)
View of a washed out Ghaziabad during twilight
We Indians when comes to complaining are the best ones you can find on the planet but sadly when it comes to creating awareness using that information we think too much to post and worry about what the people out there might think,
- we worry about the likes,
- about the up-votes,
- about the strikes
- about the sense of being not accepted just because we saw the ugly in the fugly.
And this brings me to the finale, this is it what I want “Awareness”
For you, me & everyone else that lives in the google universe or is even remotely linked by it (that means the iPhone users too). As our complaints and nagging on the social media is not accessible by all but,
- Google maps,
- Local Guide network,
- and our blogs.
They all generate a significant amount of traffic and your review can mean
"The night of their life or That night of their life**"**
An edited (much like our reviews) view of a not so recommended place during late hours
Maybe I am wrong maybe I am not, who am I ?
Mayank Sharma,
aka Mankey (yes, the Pokemon)