This is my friend @PennyChristie she’s an awesome Local Guide.
Follow will be good for quality
Recently Maps introduced the concept of following individual Local Guides. The feature is rolling out across several regions around the world.
When you follow someone their new content appears in your updates tab in the app.
This surfaces the user generated content of other Local Guides that you’re following. While this is cool from a social perspective to see where your friends have been and what they’ve experienced it will encourage those friends to think about what they’re sharing.
When you’re anonymous you’ve got no incentive to add quality content beyond your own ethics. When you’re being followed this introduces peer pressure to maintain a high standard. If you add crap your followers will see it. No one wants to be known for crap content.
Hi @PaulPavlinovich I am enjoying this post I must say, this also create some sort of competition, making you to always want others to comment and like your contribution content, so this also makes you to become famous if you are that type of a person.
I am excited to see the future of the Google Maps FOLLOW feature. I have been waiting for it for a couple of years now and hoping it will make people more aware of the type of content they share.
very well said, the feature is very nice from social perspective as it allows to get in touch with the other Local Guides but it is very good also from content point of view since all the contributions will be always visible for you.
Yep, I agree @PaulPavlinovich . It’s great to follow your friends and see what they have been up to, even if they are from a part of the world you aren’t thinking of going to at the moment. The way the people you follow write reviews or even take photos can even inspire you, from following people I realized most of my reviews although useful, I hope, seem pretty boring to read compared to others
Having people look at your profile so much makes you really aware about the quality of your contributions for sure, I can’t be followed yet but every time I give someone my profile link in hopes I can suddenly be followed I have to check what it looks like for them. I’m sure one time I will send the link with an explanation saying I don’t only post ratings, I just write my reviews 10 at a time
Agree with you comment, a very good new feature, helps to transparent the contributions of the Local Guides comunity, regardless if you are goning to visit their city or not.
@Raphael-Mahumane yes indeed - competing against your circle of friends or an influencer - it’s up to you really
@iorikun301 interesting thought, I would assume you could use the Google global account blocking at https://myaccount.google.com/blocklist to get rid of people you don’t like but you should also log an idea in Idea Exchange for managing them inside Maps - you can always go entirely private too if you wish
@Amiran I don’t have it myself yet so I hope I’ll get it soon too
@PennyChristie it has been that long eh? This has been on the cards for soooo long.
@LuigiZ oh yes indeed, I can’t wait for the next step to search for people
@Jesi its genius to follow your global friends - I love seeing what people in other countries that I know have been up to
@SebaasC transparency is a wonderful quality enhancer, you’re right
As already expressed by someone else, this is an excellent feature, which absolutely makes us more responsible as LocalGuides, and at the same time it can also intimidate for those who until now has always been “hidden” from the social part of being LocalGuides.
Not yet seen this feature available in my area, and therefore I don’t really know what it means to follow someone: do I receive every time a notification for every contribution that LocalGuide posts (photo, review)?
Or is it possible to decide what contribution I can “notify” to those who follow me?
@PaulPavlinovich Yes, this is a good feature. I personally sin this to follow local guides to learn what and how they contribute so I can improve the quality of my own contributions. I agree with you that this has increased the pressure to maintain the quality as we are being followed.
Also, this will increase the engagement of the users for sure. Kind of social media. I think this is why the team has implemented this.
