I moved to Amsterdam just under six years ago. In that time it’s changed from an alien place into the city I know best.
And you know what? This wouldn’t have happened without Google Maps’ list.
Yet I’ve found myself in a bizarre situation. I love lists on Google Maps with all my heart, but lord oh lord do they suck.
The idea behind the software is simple.
When you select a place on Google Maps, you can save it. So far so good. We’re all onboard.
But you can also save that place to a specific list; think ‘restaurants,’ ‘bars,’ or ‘places to send my enemies so they can receive their final comeuppance.’
Before Amsterdam, I lived in London, somewhere I’d spent the largest chunk of my life. As I felt like I knew the city intimately, I had no overwhelming urge to add anywhere to a list.
Cool shit? I believed I knew it.
This wasn’t the case in Amsterdam. So, when I moved, I made the conscious decision to use lists on Google Maps.
As I visited places in the city, I marked them down. Same if someone recommended me something or I stumbled across a decent-looking spot.
Within a few months, I not only had an incredible list of places, but I also had context for where things were.
I got to actually know Amsterdam.
I’d recommend this lists-driven approach to anyone getting to know a new place.
Turning Freudian for a second (how is your mother?), I’d say this method works because you’re overlaying different types of information.
Rather than a map being a disconnected splurge of lines and text — and the places you’ve actually been these isolated visual islands — marking them on a list connects abstract lines of cartography with three-dimensional sensory memories.
The pair of them complement each other, making it easier to get a fleshed out vision of a place.
But what about the bad stuff? So far, Google Maps’ lists and saved places sound great, right? RIGHT?
Wrong.
Oh so wrong. I hate to inform you that Google Maps’ lists is pretty shit.
The structural function of it is fine: you add things to lists. They stay on those lists and appear on the map.
Beyond that though? You’re on your own. Even the most basic functionality is missing.
Want to organise a list by most recently added? Nope. Want to colour code entries so you can, say, separate a list by places you’ve been and those you haven’t? Good luck with that, buster. Want to simply search your entries? Who the hell do you think you are to ask such a thing? Get out of my sight.
It’s a huge miss from Google. It could be so much better.
There’s the usability elements mentioned above, but I would love for it to become a teensy-tiny social network. Imagine, for example, everywhere you’d saved providing updates on fresh menus or specific deals. Hell, I’d even just like to be recommended new places to check out.
Instead? The vibe is dead — and this leaves Google Maps’ list in a weird place.
It’s fantastic, but it’s shit. It’s useful, yet useless. It’s improved my life massively, but has barely used an ounce of its potential.
It might just be the most human thing Google has ever made.
I concur wholeheartedly. For every "oh that's handy" there's an "oh that's rubbish".
Example - popping up in a new area of town ( town being London ) it shows me all the nearby places I have stuff saved in _all_ my lists, so I can check out that coffee shop I added 2 years ago after reading a good review of it.
If I visit said coffee shop and it's rubbish, I can add a note to that effect but ONLY if the venue stays in a list. This means I should also keep a list called "Shite Places - don't go back here" just to maintain notes as to why.
All that being said, I'd still rather have lists than not. Which reminds me, I need to do a MASSIVE housekeep of said lists <sigh>.