Google Maps 5.8 for Android adds photo uploads, My Places, and more
My Places as a simple way to manage the Places you've starred and recently viewed — Descriptive terms for Places in search results — Add a new Place on-the-go when checking in — Photo upload for a Place
Context & Ripple Effects
This release folds two existing threads into the Android app. My Places was introduced on the web only weeks ago — Google announced it in mid-June 2011 as a way to manage important locations — so version 5.8 is the mobile half of that rollout, putting starred and recently viewed places inside Maps for Android rather than behind a browser. Photo upload extends a much older lineage: photos have been part of Google Maps since 2007, and 5.8 turns every Android user with the app open at a restaurant or shop into a contributor.
First-order effects
- Android users gain in-app tools that close the loop on place data: they can attach photos to a Place and create a new Place on-the-go while checking in, instead of waiting for a web submission.
- The My Places feature launched in June now travels with the user — starred and recently viewed locations are managed from the handset, which matters for Google because check-ins and uploads generate fresh Place content directly.
Second-order effects
- Crowd-supplied photos and on-the-go place creation deepen Google Places' local inventory at near-zero marginal cost, pressuring review-and-check-in rivals like Yelp and Foursquare, whose core asset was exactly this kind of user-generated place data.
- Richer Place pages — photos, descriptive search terms, reviews added in the October 2010 Maps update — make Google's local results more self-sufficient, reducing its dependence on third-party local-content partners.
Third-order effects
- If each Maps release keeps adding capture features (check-in, add-a-place, photo upload), the smartphone becomes the primary sensor network for the map itself, shifting local-search competition from who licenses data to whose users feed the database fastest.
The trend: Mobile mapping is evolving from a consumption surface into a crowdsourced data-capture platform, with each Android release enlisting users to photograph, verify, and create the places others will search for.