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Google Removes "Search Nearby" Function From Updated Google Maps
First time accepted submitter BillCable writes "One of the most useful and intuitive features of Google's Map tool was the "Search nearby" link. After searching for a location, users could click on a marker on the map to pop open a window with the address and other details. This window also contained a link to 'Search nearby' — extremely useful if you want to find a list of restaurants near a hotel, the closest pharmacy, or any other business you might want to patronize. Google recently updated their map tool, and 'Search nearby' is no longer present. The 300 posts to the Google Product Forums complaining about this omission indicates this is a feature Maps users sorely miss. Google's work-around (detailed by Google staff in said thread) are a poor substitute and unreliable. There is no indication Google will add the feature to their new tool. For now users are able to revert to the original Google Maps with the 'Search nearby' feature intact. But there's concern that when Google discontinues support that the feature will be lost. So why would Google remove one of its best features?"
I'm guessing the feature was dropped due to privacy complaints, which just goes to show that you simply can't win.
Zagreus sits inside your head, Zagreus lives among the dead, Zagreus sees you in your bed and eats you in your sleep.
Maybe it's because only 300 people know about it? Yes, that was a joke, but seriously Google Maps has millions of users, and Google knows how many people click on it. If the vast majority don't (even if it's due to not having a clue), I could see why Google might drop it.
It's far from a perfect replacement, but Yelp lets you search for businesses and such by location. You can narrow it down my moving/zooming the mini-map in the sidebar.
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
Let me guess. Somebody else got a stupid patent on 'search nearby' functionality?
Posted from my Android phone. Oh, I can change this? There, that's better...
Yahoo is dead as fried chicken.
I don't know why Google would remove this feature, but you can be sure it probably has something to do with their strategy to shove everyone over to Google+ at gunpoint
The little yellow dude's in the bottom right.
I use the feature, but I'm not always impressed by the results. It has my exact location, but often suggests stores that are much further away. There are many times when I will search for a store trying to find the closest, but it pushes me to one across town. It is useful, so I hope it comes back, but fixed.
There may be no "I" in team, but there's also no "F" in way.
Maybe its because you can simply pull up an area on the map and type what you are looking for in the search bar (i.e. restaurants) and essentially get the same result.
This is feature they plan to roll into a pay-for-use service sold to non-Google+ customers and free for Google+ customers, after you sign in.
That's the way I've done it, or else just using the word "near" (e.g. "Catholic confessionals near bars of questionable repute").
I didn't know about "Search Nearby" until my fiancee asked me where it had gone.
Product managers. Agile development. *Lean methodology*
The business world is full of stupid yes-men who constantly jump on the newest trends regardless of merit.
One of those trends, in product management, is "lean methodology", which as some people implement it, means leaving out any sensible features that haven't been explicitly asked for. This is in the name of giving users what they want. The rigid way which product managers interpret it means they resist implementing sensible, intuitive functionality that hasn't been planned for specifically, and the whole product refinement process becomes less efficient as a result, with the minor benefit that you don't build anything that wasn't needed.
For every person that posts to complain, a thousand more can't remember their Google+ password.
Maybe its because you can simply pull up an area on the map and type what you are looking for in the search bar (i.e. restaurants) and essentially get the same result.
So maybe, and maybe so far... here's a probably: Because it's not generating enough revenue.I don't know why people seem to forget that google is a corporation and their main products are services... so funding these things is sorta important. They aren't a charity.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
Not if your account has been updated to the newest version, they did make traffic better with the ability to use live traffic or average traffic and a bubble on a dropped pin that shows current time from your default location but the removal of search nearby is a major bummer.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Google has better control of ads if they decide what you want to find.
Ding Ding Ding, we have a winner!
And now we're starting to get into the "you're the product" stage of Google. Google Shopping now is a pay-for-inclusion system, and soon Maps may head that direction.
I guess that the $64,000 question is how far will it go before either Google stops pushing it, or before they find that they have competitor that outperforms them and resists a purchase attempt...
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
That's the way I've done it, or else just using the word "near" (e.g. "Catholic confessionals near bars of questionable repute").
Google found 1920 results.
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#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
google is a corporation and their main products are services...
Correction: their main products are users. Services are just part of the manufacturing process for producing users to sell to their customers.
And use Open Street Map http://www.openstreetmap.org/
"Maybe it's because only 300 people know about it? Yes, that was a joke, but seriously Google Maps has millions of users, and Google knows how many people click on it. If the vast majority don't (even if it's due to not having a clue), I could see why Google might drop it."
The problem with that kind of analysis is that it does not include any way to measure how important the feature is to those who DO use it.
If you decide to drop (or in this case, offer a poorly-working, poorly-designed substitute) because only 20% of your users even used it, BUT that 20% of users relied on it very heavily, then guess what? Your business is going to suffer from that decision.
All consumers are also products somewhere along the line. Without the services Google offers, there would be no users. Without the users, there would be no product to advertisers. You're definition is shallow.
I'm running with the "classic" Google Maps because the new Google Maps is missing a lot of features that I find important. It still has this feature.
I don't know why they remove useful, functional features. I've always assumed it had to do with streamlining the interfaces, Apple-style (motto: "It's either easy or it's impossible"). But they don't seem to end up more friendly or usable.
I keep expecting them to start adding new features such that I'm forced to abandon the classic maps if I want them, but as far as I can tell there's nothing compelling about the new Maps, and I'll keep with the classic until they stop offering it.
I'm a big fan of Google, and I really love the way they give me cool stuff for free. I tend to give them the benefit of the doubt when they stop supporting things, and assume it means that they're working on other cool stuff. But this has me rather perplexed: a lot of work put into a new interface which is not just feature-poor but clunky.
You misspelled OpenStreetMap.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
When you have an already loaded map / search, and you enter a new search, it already does a "search nearby".
IE, if I go into Google maps and search for "Times Square, New York, NY", it shows me Times Square. If I then type in "Pizza", it will find all the pizza places AROUND TIMES SQUARE, IE the ones inside whatever window I have open. This is the way Google Maps has always behaved, it is nice an intuitive, and does not need clicking weird extra buttons. It just plain does what you expect it to do without asking.
Google wouldn't intentionally cause discomfort for its userbase without a good reason
A year ago I would have agreed with you, but after having used the now much-crippled Android Google Maps app I can't help thinking there's been a change of leader there to one whose vision for the product doesn't match the users' use of it.
"little yellow dude?"
oh, and dude, "asian american", please.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
The entire Google maps leadership team should be fired.
Google is in the (almost) unique position of having outstanding cartographical data, satellite imagery, realtime traffic information, and access to user searches and email.
They could have built an incredible mapping platform with hierarchical point and route storage and sharing, GPX import/export, realtime location sharing (ie. latitude), advanced planning, map overlays, user reporting on traffic incidents/roadblocks/radar..
A year ago, they seemed to be heading in this direction.
Instead, they've slowly been stripping away the features they had that made it useful.
I remember looking upon the Google Maps iPhone app 6 months ago in horror. How do I send my own location? How do I see a topographical view? Why do selected locations snap to the nearest road? Why can't I measure distance, or plan a route in advance? Why can't I save a place, and give it a different name? I laughed, smug in the superiority of my Android version. I thought nice play, Google.. way to stick it to iPhone users, and offer them a compelling reason to switch to Android!
Little known to me at the time, my preferred platform would suffer the same fate. The abomination that was Google Maps on iPhone was ported, and pushed out to Android as well! Now who's laughing, right?
I am literally dumbfounded. Android's old maps application (6.14) was good. Not perfect, but good. The new version is laughable. No more latitude. No more labs. No more topographical maps. No more realtime transit navigation. No zoom buttons for one-handed use. No dedicated navigation button. No arrows pointing the direction of each search result. Bizarre, distracting user interface with clunky "3D" wipes. Still can't share your current location.
It doesn't surprise me at all that they're starting to remove features from the new Maps for web.
I'm almost certain that it's a move to convert the platform from data to advertisement. Less focus on what is actual (corner of 5th and E17th), and what is sponsored (Feel like McDonalds? Here are some locations!). I only hope that competition moves in to eat their lunch, and everyone who was involved in gutting it is offered a package.
A government is a body of people notably ungoverned - AC
It's so damn useful though. You locate yourself on a map from an intersection (or geolocation if you don't care about your privacy at all) and search nearby places.
Example: I'm at a tire store and it will take 45 minutes before my car is ready. I plug the address of the tire store into Google and search for nearby restaurants within a 10 minute walk. It tells me that up the street, which I did not come by from, has a Denny's.
That's fucking important. I need to know where those Denny's are to avoid them more than Battlestar Gallatica tried to avoid the Cylons, or a salad avoided Jabba the Hutt. I think most sane and rational people have used Google this way right?
As far the maybe is concerned, perhaps, it's that Google really did find a lot of people doing that and figured it was an additional commodity to sell. A local business would pay quite a bit actually to steer real time requests for businesses towards them. I know some businesses well enough to say they would test it out and shift funds away from other marketing budgets.
A half a dozen times in the last 3 years I've found myself in meetings with the local telephone book companies pitching SEO and their own web based directories as the primary product instead of their dead tree publishing. Those companies see the writing on the wall and are not trying to sue or regulate the Internet into compliance with their old business model, unlike some creeps we know. They would jump on that in a second to offer local foot traffic to a retail brick and mortar store as an added service they provide.
Google could make money doing that. Google doesn't service the Internet user except with a glove going you-know-where, they service their real customers and those are the advertising industry and Big Data consumers.
Got a funny feeling that it will play out just like that. A new NearMe(tm) feature with sponsored search results on a revamped directory page.
Google could knock off Eat24.com and Groupon in an afternoon with their search tech, map tech, and payment processing tech.
There's money in it. A lot of it.
except that will give you paid for search results that might not actually be near the location. Search nearby returns what's nearby regardless of what advertisers paid google.
Don't complain about syntax, grammar, or spelling. There is no.hell like input on android.
You can still do every single thing you said above. The people are complaining about some button that you are not even mentioning. I don't even know how to get to the functionality they are talking about.
Seriously. This is the dark ages for Google. I smell the work of pointy-haired MBAs.
Easy mistake to make, they are both useless at finding absolutely anything.
Ok Example: I'm at a tire store and it will take 45min before my car is ready.
I pull out the phone and click maps. No need to plug my address in the phone will centre in my current location. I search for "restaurants" and I get a list of restaurants starting with the closest one with good reviews. I even have a previous / next button.
The phone knows where I'm interested in because it's already on the screen. None of the results appear to be further than a few minutes walk. Done. And all without using an apparently critical feature of Google Maps that I never knew existed that gets the same results.
Because American streets are about six lanes wide, have rows of trees down the middle, have carparks outside the strip malls, which are a further 100 meters wide and have more trees. So it can be a good 200 meters between the tyre shop and the nearest restaurant. Looking around isn't possible, you need maps.
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
Not really. The new maps is basically built around this feature. This seems to me to be a case of people not understanding that "search nearby" is effectively the default Google Maps behavior in the new version. It only moves the map if it doesn't find nearby results, or if the search query is a specific location elsewhere.
Try it yourself. Using the new maps, zoom in on a location with a number of restaurants, and type "restaurants" in the search box.