Journal

Google Local for the UK

Posted on April 19th, 2005, in the evening

Google have launched Google Local and Google Maps for the UK. It's almost disturbing how much you can find out with these services.

Google Maps on its own is not too disimilar from from StreetMap.co.uk or MultiMap.com, so for example here is a map of Durham with the DSU building King's Church meet in labelled. Similar to other map sites, but much better presentation, no ads, a far greater scale of zoom, draggable, pin-point labelling... and that's not even the beginning.

Say you want to travel from Durham to Cardiff for some (*cough* U2 concert!) reason. You type in Durham to Cardiff and you find out it's 307 miles and will take about 5 hours 34 minutes to drive (oy!). All the directions are marked on the map.

Add to the mix Google Local and let's try searching for pizza in Durham... up come all the pizza places in Durham complete with addresses, telephone numbers, plus a map with them all labelled!

You'd think they would be content with providing the greatest search engine, but Google just raise the bar time and time again. This is seriously useful stuff.