jatiN mahindrA doT coM

Google Maps Takes Steps To Improve Marker Accuracy

By and large, Google Maps is great, providing well-plotted directions and up-to-date contact information on demand and free of charge.  But slight inaccuracies persist, and to fix this problem, Google will now allow people to reposition markers using Street View instead of just maps and satellite images. Perhaps this sounds familiar: you type an address into Google Maps, switch to Street View,...

Google Expands Maps Into Much More of Africa

Google is expanding Google Maps into 30 African countries where it was not previously available. "One of the things we spend a lot of time thinking about at Google is how we can make the world’s information more accessible and useful to people all over the globe," Google says. "This includes providing rich local geographic data because, after all, a huge number of search queries...

Google Takes Street View to Vancouver and Whistler

With the games in Vancouver and Whistler right around the corner, many wonder about the extraordinary view the world’s best skiers and snowboarders experience during the event. Well to no one’s surprise, Google Maps can now take you there. That’s right, hold on to your helmets, because during February 12-28 anyone around the world can adventure down the trails of Whistler Mountain...

Google Suggests Competitors for Local Business Searches

Google is offering suggestions for "nearby places you might like" on Google Maps when you look up a place that you do like. So if you like a particular bakery, you might be presented with other places within the same vicinity that Google thinks you might also be interested in trying. "When you live in New York City, everyone has an opinion on where to eat," says Tammy Stern of...

Cambodia Lambastes Google Over Border Portrayal

The governments of France, Germany, and Italy are all arguably annoyed with Google.  China’s not thrilled with the search giant, either.  And now, because of the way in which Google’s portrayed a disputed border, Cambodia’s quite mad at it. According to Reuters, Svay Sitha, the secretary of state of Cambodia’s Council of Ministers, wrote a letter to Google complaining...

Google Launches 2 New Mobile Features for Maps

Last week, Google introduced personalized suggestions for Google Maps. This lets signed in users who have web history enabled find places faster as Google suggests places based on past searches. Now they have launched the feature for Google Maps for Mobile on Android. "If you often use both a computer and a mobile phone in your daily routine, it can seem like a hassle when they don’t stay...

Personalized Suggestions On Google Maps Introduced

People with perfect memories and/or senses of direction are excused from reading this article.  Everybody else may be pleased to know that Google’s introduced a version of personalized suggestions on Google Maps. Can’t remember exactly what street your father’s favorite cigar shop is on?  Forget the last couple digits of a casual acquaintance’s address?  It’s...

Google Ditches Local Listings for SEOs and Designers

As 2009 came to a close, Google managed to get SEOs riled up for one last controversial topic. For some time, SEOs and web designers have been noticing that Google has not been showing local listings in search results for queries related to their businesses – even location-specific ones. Should SEOs and designers be worried about local listings? Comment here. As Matt McGee mentions in a Search...

Google’s Place Pages Just Got More Useful

Google has introduced some new features for its recently launched Place Pages for local businesses. Most notably, businesses can now instantly (close anyway) post data to their Place Pages from Google’s Local Business Center dashboard. If you log in, you can post updates, coupons, announcements, etc. that will go live in minutes. It isn’t hard to see why this could be a useful tool for...

Could Billboard Ads in Google Maps Street View Become a Possibility?

Google has been granted a quite interesting patent for "Claiming Real Estate in Panoramic or 3D Mapping Environments for Advertising". The company filed the patent back in the summer of 2008. The abstract reads: Techniques for identifying groups of features in an online geographic view of a real property and replacing and/or augmenting the groups of features with advertisement information...

Google Maps Learns To Acknowledge Landmarks

A good drive can be one of life’s most enjoyable experiences.  But a bad one is, of course, no fun at all, and poor directions are often responsible for making things take a turn for the worse.  So Google appears to be overhauling the way in which it tells people to get from one point to another. Ever follow some computer-generated directions in a strange city?  It’s possible...

Google Maps Introduces Useful Popups

We’ll admit from the start: this change will not revolutionize the world.  It probably won’t even bring a single new person to Google Maps.  Still, a nice little interface tweak’s been made insofar as Google Maps now displays business info when users hover over any points of interest. Try not to think of this as saving anyone a single click.  The change will matter...

Verify Your Place Page in Google’s Local Search Results

When you find a business on Google Maps and click "more info", you will be taken to that business’ "Place Page." These are the pages that Google introduced a while back that essentially gather content related to that particular business in one place. One might find photos, coupons, reviews, etc. on the Place Page. Businesses can tell Google if they want specific things there,...

Google Adds Place Pages to Google Earth

Google has started including Place Pages in Google Earth. Place Pages are the pages that Google sets up for places and businesses that have been accessible via Google Maps for a little while. They incorporate photos, videos, reviews and other content about that particular business or place, into one spot. Google Earth users who browse the world in 3D will now be able to bring these Place Pages up...

New Google Maps for Android Gets Experimental

Google released Google Maps 3.3 for Android today, which lets users find nearby businesses, try new experimental "Labs" projects, and report problems with map data from their phone. Users can check to see what businesses are nearby at anytime, by simply long-pressing on the map, tapping the bubble, and going to the option that says "What’s Nearby?". Users will get a menu...