Episode 46: Water Taps on Maps

Sometimes you come across special projects using Google Maps as their main tool. Perhaps you might recall episode 12 about EdPins, a project focusing on schools. In this episode we look at a project that aims to add water taps, places where you can refill your water bottle, to Google Maps.

And you will also find out how local guides can help in getting this ambitious project realized.

SHOWNOTES

Episode 45: Adding Roads – Continued

In episode 35 we covered the basics about adding roads, but since then a lot has been going on in exactly that domain, so here’s another episode with additional info on adding roads, which also includes official answers from the Google team to a number of questions I was able to submit to them.

And you’ll certainly want to stick around until the end of the episode, as there’s a section with some exciting news items as well.

SHOWNOTES

Episode 44: News & Updates

It has only been 3 months or so since the previous ‘News & Updates’ episode, but still I have already come across enough topics to fill another one. So here we go again: an overview of the interesting and/or newsworthy things related to Google Maps and the local guides program that I have encountered in the past few months.

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Episode 43: The ChatGPT Episode

The very first episode of the LetsGuide Podcast dates back to February 2019 – more than 4 years ago. It was called “The basics”, as it explained in detail what it means to be a local guide. For a while now, I have been wanting to make an update of it, but I didn’t like the idea of putting a lot of work into that. So the solution I came up with is to simply ask ChatGPT to write it – and that’s exactly what I did. Of course, having to record all those AI-generated texts with my own voice would also be a considerable effort, so I decided to have the answers ChatGPT provided read aloud by AI-generated text to speech software. So I present to you: the basic info about the local guides program, as created and read aloud by AI.

SHOWNOTES

Episode 42: News & Updates

It’s been a while since we had a News & Updates episode, and obviously, the Google Maps team has not been sitting around idly all that time – which means it’s high time to check out again what new features have been introduced (or spotted as preview) in Google Maps and what’s new in the local guides community.

SHOWNOTES

Episode 41: Layers

There is a lot of information on Google Maps – an overwhelming amount in fact. If you zoom in or out, other types of information will be shown to you: e.g. city or even country names if you’re zoomed out, and individual street or place names when you’re zooming in. Other types of information can also be displayed when you have specific needs, such as traffic information when you are driving.

All of that information is stored and organized on the map in layers – and that is the topic of this episode.

SHOWNOTES

Episode 40: The Truth about Views

Being an active local guide is to some extent a numbers game. There are the points you earn when you contribute to Google Maps, the levels you reach by getting those points and the counters for the different types of contributions (how many reviews you wrote, how many questions you have answered, etc.), but the most impressive number is beyond any doubt the counter of the views for the pictures you have uploaded. Lots of local guides have seen this count go up into the millions – some even into the billions. 

But what is really shown there? What exactly are those ‘views’ and where do they come from? Are there perhaps any tips or hacks to make sure your pictures reach a crazily high view count? In this episode, we will try to answer those questions and find out the truth about views.

SHOWNOTES

Episode 39: News & Updates

One of the consequences of publishing podcast episodes less frequently, is that I will need to do a “News & Updates” episode every couple of episodes, I guess – especially if the Google Maps team keeps bringing out new features at the current pace. But I have understood from the feedback that most of the audience likes these episodes, so here we go again: more news and updates about Google Maps and the local guides program!

SHOWNOTES

Episode 38: Connect Moderators

Google provides a dedicated forum for Local Guides to get in touch with one another and share their experiences. That is – as you will probably know – Local Guides Connect. On that platform the moderation is handled on the one hand by some Google employees, the Google Moderators, and on the other hand by selected Local Guides, the Connect Moderators. In this episode we’ll have a closer look at those Connect Moderators, and you will actually hear the info from those Connect Moderators themselves.

SHOWNOTES

Episode 37: Artificial Unintelligence

AI (Artificial Intelligence) is definitely one of the most used buzzwords in recent years. And Google is definitely a major contributor in that field. But when it comes to using Google Maps and being a Local Guide some of the things we see pop up or get proposed by the algorithms don’t seem to be intelligent at all. In this episode we will cover some specific examples of what I would like to call Artificial Unintelligence and suggest possible fixes. Let’s hope it can help the Google team deliver an even better user experience.

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