LetsGuide Podcast Jan Van Haver

Sometimes you come across special projects using Google Maps as their main tool. Perhaps you might recall episode 12 about EdPins, a project focusing on schools. In this episode we look at a project that aims to add water taps, places where you can refill your water bottle, to Google Maps. And you will also find out how local guides can help in getting this ambitious project realized.

Check out the shownotes on https://www.letsguidepodcast.com. To get in touch, just send an email to letsguidepodcast@gmail.com.

In episode 35 we covered the basics about adding roads, but since then a lot has been going on in exactly that domain, so here’s another episode with additional info on adding roads, which also includes official answers from the Google team to a number of questions I was able to submit to them.

And you’ll certainly want to stick around until the end of the episode, as there’s a section with some exciting news items as well.

Check out the shownotes on https://www.letsguidepodcast.com. To get in touch, just send an email to letsguidepodcast@gmail.com.

It has only been 3 months or so since the previous ‘News & Updates’ episode, but still I have already come across enough topics to fill another one. So here we go again: an overview of the interesting and/or newsworthy things related to Google Maps and the local guides program that I have encountered in the past few months.

Check out the shownotes on https://www.letsguidepodcast.com. To get in touch, just send an email to letsguidepodcast@gmail.com.

The very first episode of the LetsGuide Podcast dates back to February 2019 - more than 4 years ago. It was called “The basics”, as it explained in detail what it means to be a local guide. For a while now, I have been wanting to make an update of it, but I didn’t like the idea of putting a lot of work into that. So the solution I came up with is to simply ask ChatGPT to write it - and that’s exactly what I did. Of course, having to record all those AI-generated texts with my own voice would also be a considerable effort, so I decided to have the answers ChatGPT provided read aloud by AI-generated text to speech software. So I present to you: the basic info about the local guides program, as created and read aloud by AI.

Check out the shownotes on https://www.letsguidepodcast.com. To get in touch, just send an email to letsguidepodcast@gmail.com.

It’s been a while since we had a News & Updates episode, and obviously, the Google Maps team has not been sitting around idly all that time - which means it’s high time to check out again what new features have been introduced (or spotted as preview) in Google Maps and what’s new in the local guides community.

Check out the shownotes on https://www.letsguidepodcast.com. To get in touch, just send an email to letsguidepodcast@gmail.com.

There is a lot of information on Google Maps - an overwhelming amount in fact. If you zoom in or out, other types of information will be shown to you: e.g. city or even country names if you’re zoomed out, and individual street or place names when you’re zooming in. Other types of information can also be displayed when you have specific needs, such as traffic information when you are driving.

All of that information is stored and organized on the map in layers - and that is the topic of this episode. 

Check out the shownotes on https://www.letsguidepodcast.com. To get in touch, just send an email to letsguidepodcast@gmail.com.