My favorite type of content to watch, specially on YouTube, is reviews. I think reviewers do a great job of giving customers the power of knowledge before buying anything and for a lot of people that counts a lot. Whether you are reviewing a smartphone skin or a city to live, everything is important as you will spend time and money doing that after and to be able to access information before your decision can make a huge difference in everyone’s life. I know this maybe seem like a stretch, but sharing honest opinions is a great way to use internet to help us in our lives.
With that said, Google Maps Local Guide program is a great idea to help feel people’s experiences are important. When you facilitate the connection between customers and service providers you are helping both ways: customers can now talk about their experience and provide sugestions and/or inspirations to what they experienced and service providers can improve what they do by knowing the how different people are experiencing their product/service. If you think like that, this powerful tool can change a lot of things in a society.
I like to think that the Google Maps is an idea of social network of places, experiences and customers. If you come to think of it, this principle can be applied to a lot of things, just imagine being able to give stars and reviews based on a product that you bought or a policy that your city has taken. This is of course and extrapolation of the original idea but this principles of having a tool just for feedback is for me the best way to use the social networks we have to day. Instead of just sharing photos about your life, you are sharing information that can directly help another person. I know this isn’t the most popular idea on the table, as many of millions of people will just rather choose to easily share it’s own personal stuff but to be able to counsel other people is something I take it very seriously and try my best to give useful reviews, photos and comments.
I wish for Google to continue its development of Google Maps and increase the social aspect of it, this can be the best social network out there and the constant grow of use just proves it. Best of luck to all the teams behind it, you have my support!