Google’s Local Guides program has over 120 million members in 24,000 global locations. Although they are largely invisible, they are indispensable part of the Google Maps experience. They provide reviews, images and other content as well as answering questions (Q&A) about local businesses and places.
Guides are about to become even more visible than before, as Maps users in several cities will be able to follow Local Guides and see local recommendations of places and things to do.
The cities that this will be tested in are:
- London
- Mexico City
- New York
- Bangkok
- Delhi
- Osaka
- Tokyo
- San Francisco
- São Paulo.
Top Local Guides, which are determined by points and levels based contribution activity, will be presented under the “Fore You” discovery tab at the bottom of the Google Maps app.
What is For You? It is basically a local discovery feed, like other Google content feeds.
When you follow a Local Guide, the will see that Guide’s recommendations. This is basically mirroring the local business follow feature in Google My Business and the lesser known follow Lists feature in Maps. You can find the Lists feature under “Your Places.”