Google Places iPhone app – Not convinced yet…
January 13th, 2011 by
Yesterday, Google announced and released its vast (almost too vast) catalogue of data on the brand new Places app. Places can be a nightmare for anyone looking for specific businesses on the web, especially if you’re in SEO. The app is a fairly elegant solution to this problem.
At first glance, it’s a great app. It’s easy to use and easy to find and review different businesses around your city. However, Yelp did it first and did it better. Also, I’m sure they’re going to roll out an update that allows you to check-in to locations, and who really needs another one of those? I still haven’t chosen my favorite one yet and I’m not going to complicate things by introducing another.
There is some good to this app, though. Just like Google Places on the web, it pulls reviews from multiple sites across the ‘Net.
Also, everybody is on Google. This can make for a great recommendations service, as long as it takes off. It also integrates their new Hotpot feature and it’s free, which is always a plus.
As you can tell, I’m not entirely sold yet on this, which is insane. Usually I’m right behind Google when they roll out their latest venture. Not this time, though. Maybe Google should stop focusing on copying or trying to buy the latest craze and start creating them again.
I totally agree with you Rodney. I’ve been bombarded with all these local based check-in applications, but I think Google will eventually come out with one themselves, probably integrated into their Google Places app. I wrote a quick blog about this morning, just touching pretty much some of the things you mentioned in this post. I wonder is 9 categories is enough on the main screen, or will the be adding more…
Word: “Maybe Google should stop focusing on copying or trying to buy the latest craze and start creating them again.”