Google has introduced it is going to shut down the person follower characteristic on Google Maps later this 12 months. The change, set to take impact in September, marks the tip of a social performance that allowed customers to comply with different people to view their public exercise, resembling posted evaluations, photographs, and movies. This choice comes after Google had already phased out a associated characteristic earlier in January—the power to comply with companies for updates on occasions and promotions.
The person follower system was launched in 2020 as an extension of the 2018 “Observe” button characteristic (launched in 2019 on iOS), which initially allowed customers to comply with companies. The purpose was to make Google Maps a extra community-driven platform, including a social layer the place customers might interact with content material shared by others. Nevertheless, the follower characteristic by no means gained widespread adoption and, in some circumstances, led to undesirable interactions, resembling spam requests from bots.
With the upcoming elimination, Google said that each one follower-related knowledge—each who customers comply with and who follows them—might be completely deleted from its servers. The visibility settings of consumer profiles will stay intact, however there’ll now not be a must handle follower requests, particularly for these with restricted accounts. For a lot of customers, this will likely come as a reduction because of the restricted engagement and occasional spam related to the characteristic.
Google is encouraging customers inquisitive about group interplay to transition to Native Guides Join, an official discussion board the place individuals can earn factors for contributing to Maps by writing evaluations, submitting photographs, or modifying place data. This platform is extra targeted on sensible engagement reasonably than social connections and continues to help record creation and sharing.
In a separate improvement, Google just lately expanded its partnership with electrical car maker Rivian. Rivian’s vehicles and SUVs are actually adopting a brand new navigation system powered by the Google Maps Auto SDK, changing the previous system that used Mapbox. This replace gives drivers with entry to real-time site visitors knowledge and enhanced search capabilities for factors of curiosity, strengthening Google Maps’ position within the EV navigation house.
Filed in . Learn extra about Google and Google Maps.
