Hello from Cincinnati, home of the Reds and the Bengals

[ele]

On the road again

Name: Eleodor

1. Location: Cincinnati, Ohio. Also known as The Queen City. Also knows as Porkopolis, due to the meat industry in the 19th century.  Cincinnati is home to two major sports clubs, the Cincinnati Reds, the oldest team in Major League Baseball, and the Cincinnati Bengals of the NFL 
2. What I love about being a Local Guide: I love to help my fellow travelers with good reviews and good photos. Some of the reviews are "tongue on cheek", but we all need an outlet for our creativity.  

   One of my goals for 2018 as a local guide is to create a clear "How to" for a photo to be picked as the main photo for a location, and share it with the community.

   To me, having your picture representing an important building or monument is an accomplishment as worthy as your review being marked as most helpful by the users of Google maps. It shows mastery, and it helps the Map users. 

   So far, based on other popular posts, I plan to test several hypotheses.  

   My current main hypotheses for  "significantly increase your chances for the photo to be picked as the main by the AI algorithm" as the following:

   1. Your camera photo has better chances than a phone photo.

   2. Framing well the location (good frontal view of the building, signage included, sky or trees for perspective). At times, a detailed photo of items being sold or consumed will be the main photo. 

   3. Good exposure and contrast, mainly achieved via editing software (Lightroom or the like)

   4. The resolution of the original file is above a certain threshold (will test this with 300K, 1M and 4MB) 

   5. The photo is geo-tagged. 

3. My favorite thing to explore: I absolutely love travelling and my favorite thing is to learn what the locals do. Airbnb, not Marriott or Westin, if I can. 
4. Fun Fact about me: Traveled to over 70 countries in the last two decades. 

Articles on Local Guides:

It’s January 2028. How will the Google Maps look like ten years from now?

Are we contributing to the right platform? Is Google Maps winning with users? The threat of Facebook

Integration of Google Maps with Walmart/ Target/ Home Depot Inventory and Google Express

Ten Key Ingredients of Google Maps: Ingredient 1 – The “Search By location” useless project

Help with your hypothesis: A clear "How to" for a photo to be picked as main pic for a location.

[GraceBiano]

Hi @KlaudiyaG!!

Do let me know, i'll give you a tour 🙂

[Hostindublin]

1. Name: Stef
2. Location: Dublin, Ireland ( Originally from Italy)
3. What I love about being a Local Guide: I used to travel a lot in the past, but years ago I developed a genetic muscle disorder and unfortunately now travelling is much more difficult. I took the opportunity to visit local places and only recently I realized that I can make a contribution in google map. I am so grateful to all the local guides because I can still travel and see things thanks to all the pictures they are posting around the world!
4. My favorite thing to explore: When I take a picture of someone/something I always like to discover their past, history is an important matter to me and it helps me to understand better what I see
5. Fun Fact about me: I've lived and worked in 5 different countries and visited many others. Now that I can't travel so much I set up an Airbnb in my place so I am still meet a lot of people from all the conuntries

[sajidsiddiquetahir]

Hi Everyone,

I am Sajid Siddique From Karachi Pakistan.

Travelling & exploring new place is my passion + hobby 🙂

[kingcod12]

hi guy, nice too meet U 🙂
i am newbie

[BishowvijayaP]

@OSAMA Let's not mention who she is, but you are true she is gorgeous. 😀😁

---

@OSAMA wrote:

Who is this gorgeous lady !??? @BishowvijayaP 😉

OMG @LaxmiG1 😄 Full of happiness and enthusiastic :-)))) Welcome welcome Welcome 🙌🙏📣📣🎉 

[NadyaPN]

Hi @sajidsiddiquetahir,

I've moved your message to this month's Introduce yourself topic. This way it will be noticed by more people. You can share a photo of you and maybe get to know other Local Guides.

Thanks!

- Nadya

[KPMarket]

HI everyone,

I am Kamal Rana from Noida district of India.

I love to explore the places across India  through the map only & will be glad if my hobbies can help the community by  sharing the location & putting the information.

[BishowvijayaP]

Hello @KPMarket, thank you so much for introducing yourself with us. Please use introduce yourself- February 2018 section for introduction.

[ErmesT]

Hi @KPMarket

A Warm Welcome in Connect, the Official Community of Google Local Guides.

I am merging your post in the official thread 

As this seems to be one of your first post in here, I take the opportunity to give you some information to know now to interact with the community:

• Need Help?: The help area give you a lot of solutions if you need to "know how to ...."

• Explore the Forum menu, to see what the various sections are about. You will find many interesting parts regarding, for example, meet-up, or photographic technique.

• In this section we post photos enriched with our story.

• Give to the post a descriptive title

• Introduce yourself to the community, tell us about you.

As an extra tips, i would suggest you to Search the community before posting as the same subject can be already being discussed.

Welcome again, I hope to see you soon 🙂

Ermes