14 DAY TRIAL // The main touting point of Hotpot, which has been merged into Google Places, is that you get recommendations based on what the people you know like as well, making them significantly more relevant, or rather, more trustworthy than generic recommendations.
But just because you know someone doesn't mean you'll like the same things, which is why Google is debuting a new feature with recommendations from "People like you."
"Let’s face it, your nearest and dearest don’t always enjoy the same kinds of places as you," Mat Balez, Product Manager for Google Places, wrote.
"So to help you find more recommendations from people who do actually share your tastes, we’ve come up with a new experimental feature for Google Places we’re calling, quite simply, 'People like you'," he added.
The idea is simple and it makes sense now that Google has attracted enough users to make it feasible to try to find people with the same tastes. The algorithm looks at other Places users with recommendations and compares your likes and dislikes.
If it decides that you have a lot in common, you may get recommendations based on their reviews and likes.
"Now, you can see all the places that people who are “like-minded” with you enjoy, since there’s a very good chance you’re going to love them too. Just click on people’s nicknames to see their full set of recommendations," Google added.
The new section is accessible from the left sidebar. "People like you" lists users that share your interests and shows places that you haven't rated but you may like. You can also check out the profiles of the ones Google determined to have similar tastes.
The feature is an interesting addition since it expands on the original concept. Hotpot is shaping up to be a complete product with a social layer that makes sense and seems to work.