Google is looking to move the unique physical address of a popular location to a unique virtual address, with a new feature that the search giant likes to call ‘Place Pages’ for Google Maps.
One of the common use cases of a service like Google Maps is to find places you don’t know much about. While it’s fun to zoom in near your neighbourhood and see what your neighbours were up to when they were rudely photographed from outer space, when you really need to use it, it is usually to get to (or away from) a place you don’t know much about.
This new Google maps feature will essentially create a page for “businesses, points of interest, transit stations, landmarks, and cities all over the world.” This has the effect of essentially making Google maps an encyclopaedia of places, rather than just a maps service.
Visiting a page for any place (such as New Delhi) will give you a page with photos, videos and popular places along with reviews and relevant links. Pages can also be added for businesses, and business owners can add content themselves, listing working hours, services, products and even offer coupons! Users on the other hand can rate these businesses, so you can gain the benefit of others’ experiences.
All this with a nice easy to remember URL like google.com/places/in/newdelhi/connaughtplace for Connaught Place, New Delhi, India (in). Best of all, this information is user editable, making this new feature almost a visual Wikipedia of locations.