14 DAY TRIAL // The Lat Long Blog is the place to go when you want to know whether there's something new in store related to Google Maps. Yesterday, Lior Ron posted an entry relating to the new options added to search. Much to my surprise, they are actually really useful to the average user and not necessarily to the maps aficionado, like I had expected them to be.
I say that because the latest important update was about the editing tools, as users were given the option to toy around with them and order them in any particular manner that they thought would help. Only useful for those creating maps and not appealing at all to the average Joe Internet.
The search update includes some three filters for categories, so that the results page only reflects the links to just the things you'd be interested in:
Locations - Search only addresses, places of interest or other location names. Businesses - Search only businesses. User-created content - Search maps created by users in Google or anywhere on the web.
The new additions come as a result of the huge number of options added to Google Maps, such as the possibility to add YouTube videos, Panoramio photos and Google books, just to name a few. Surfing through all of that was made easier and more relevant now. If you're looking, say, for a particular city, the only results rendered will match your query if you use "Locations" and anything else will be omitted. Of course, the option to go through all the content available has not been removed and is still the default option, dubbed "Everything."
The one option that is certain to be very successful is "User-created content," certain to be used by most when they'll be looking for real and honest descriptions and ratings of different places. Overall, a good update and I'd like to see more of those, although to be honest, I just don't see anything this important happening really soon.