Google Maps gives you some tools to… well, work for Google
As the world changes, Google Maps outdates quicker and quicker. With several thousand restaurants closing, roads being built in record time due to decreased traffic, and Covid-19 precautions keeping a lot of Googlers at arms length, Maps needs some work updating to current.
Google has added tools to let you draw new or missing roads on Maps, challenged the community to leave reviews and updates in an attempt to draw close to Yelp, and coming soon the ability to contribute photos to places to do quick updates rather than full reviews “pictured below: this was where Chuck’s was before the tornado.”
I guess I would feel a little different about this if they were not tracking your movements and using it to sell to advertisers, or attempting to crush competing review sites, or if the local guides got more out of the deal such as YouTube Premium or discounted storage or something.
While the desire for the internet to actually contain right information is there, it seems like a trillion dollar company would at least offer squishy stress balls or something like a chance to look at the Orcut source code.
Don’t get me wrong, I do this all the time – I’ve updated hours, fixed locations, attempted and failed to get someone to fix speed limit incorrectness on I-440 in Nashville, but that’s me.
You can read about the tools/challenge here.
