Google Maps Suggests New Places You Might Like

Posted Sat, 02/06/2010 - 00:51 by Mashable

Google keeps adding new features to Google Maps and Google Earth. The latest: As of today you can type in a restaurant or other place you like in Google Maps and receive recommendations of nearby places you might like just as much or more. Sure, it’s not quite as radical as something like the rumored store interior pics in Google Street View, but it’s always good to see more robust location services. Yelp offers something vaguely similar with a “people who viewed this also viewed” box, but Google’s algorithm is probably more sophisticated. Google has beaten location-focused services like Foursquare to the punch with this. That’s too bad, because we imagine Foursquare could in theory use your check-in history to provide much better suggestions just like Netflix suggests films based on which movies you’ve already rented or streamed and how you’ve rated them. It’s not surprising that Google did it first, though; Google has a lot more experience using algorithms to determine what you’re looking for than Yelp or Foursquare do. Google wasn’t very clear about how its algorithm works in its blog post on the subject. You’ll just have to try it for yourself to see if the results are helpful to you, but your mileage may vary. We viewed the place page for the Indie Cafe sushi and Asian fusion restaurant on the far north side of Chicago and received a bunch of — you guessed it — sushi and Asian fusion restaurant suggestions in adjacent neighborhoods. But when we looked up Big City Swing dance studio in the same city, the results were a bit less precise. Some were great, like the Lincoln Tap Room and Tango Chicago. Others made a lot less sense, like a barber shop and other unrelated venues in a distant suburb almost an hour’s drive away. Try it out and let us know what you think: How does it work? Do you think it’s helpful enough that you’ll be using it regularly? Tags: foursquare, Google, google earth, Google Maps, location services, yelp

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