JOIN USLocal Guides, who are helping Google Maps India to expand its local search for the past one year, will be given incentives to expand the platform to share more experiences and discoveries.
In an interaction with Deccan Herald, Google India Maps Lead Product Manager Sanket Gupta said, Local Guides who provide information, which is validated by internal tools, will fetch points and take them to five different levels.
“Once they complete these levels, Local Guides will be taken towards unlocking something new — from early access to new products, to exclusive contests and event invites, to bonus storage and more,” he said.
While the Level 1 Local Guides with 0 to 4 points can participate in exclusive contests in select countries, the level 2 Local Guides with 5 to 49 points get early access to new Google products and features. The Level 3 Local Guides with 50 to 199 points can show up in the Google Maps app with their official Local Guides badge.
Level 4 with 200 to 499 points can receive 1TB upgrade of the drive storage, allowing them to keep all stories, photos and videos from their travels on one safe place. The level 5 Local Guides with over 500 points will become eligible to apply for Google inaugural summit in 2016.
As part of the initiative, Google India organised its first-ever India Local Guides meet in Bengaluru recently. “We want to recognise the contribution of the Local Guides on Google Maps. We saw a great response at the Bengaluru event. Local Guides shared tips with each other on how to contribute, organise meetups and reach the next level,” added Gupta.
Local Guides programme enables locals to share their discoveries and experiences on Google Maps so that people across the world can benefit from this experience.
“Whether it is through writing a review, sharing photographs of a particular dish or menu, answering yes / no questions, contributions from Local Guides will benefit billions of people using Google Maps across the world. Local Guides can also contribute by editing incorrect information (such as phone number, location etc.) on Maps or by adding a missing place,” he said.
Google Local Guides are now working from almost all tier-I, II and III cities. The company also plans to expand the Local Guide events in other cities too this year.