Can Immersive Views help Google Maps stand out from IG and TikTok? 

Google wants to be the first place you go to discover or search for new things. With increasing competition from Instagram and TikTok, it has released an immersive experience feature for Google Maps.

New updates of Google Maps

On 27 July, Google announced three new features for its navigation app. These are aerial and more immersive views of 100 landmarks, detailed cycling routes, and improved location sharing with notifications for the arrival and departure of your friends.

For the past few years, Google Maps has been adding enhanced features to give users a detailed ability to plan their navigation. In fact, some of its features are currently interim steps in longer upgrade strategies. In fact, in May 2022, Google first announced the idea of immersive views at its developer conference Google IO. The company aimed to create 3D models of landmarks by using a combination of Street View, satellite, and aerial images. Currently, it is releasing immersive views of 100+ places located in various cities. However, the first iteration of the feature is incomplete. But it still supports more than 100 locations across major cities like London, New York, Barcelona, etc.

How is Google competing with TikTok and Instagram?

The new immersive view feature will eventually go beyond traditional landmarks. In the future, it will be used to bring to life local hotspots like restaurants, theatres, and many more. As a result, it will give potential tourists a better feel of the places they are looking to visit. Google’s announcement dwells on the increasing competition from Instagram and Twitter. More users are locating popular places and discovering new areas from these platforms. However, Google strives to be the primary tool where people find immersive views including other future features.

Immersive Views for Better Navigation

Google Maps is rolling better navigation tools for cyclists. Although Maps has offered bike navigation for a long time, the new update will enhance navigation to provide cyclists with more information about their routes.

With the new feature, cyclists will be able to check for traffic, including bike lanes, how steep or windy the route is as well as the condition of the roads. They can use this information to choose alternative paths, as (in some cases) Google will also offer possible and faster routes with more bike lanes and fewer turns.

Additionally, Google is also upgrading location sharing. Along with sharing your location, you can ping notifications to a friend to inform them about your arrival and departure. It will also warn you when you’ve left the feature turned on if you didn’t set a time limit when you started sharing your location.