Google has updated its Local Guides program for Google Maps, incentivizing people to regularly leave reviews, upload photos, and/or add information for restaurants, tourist spots, and other locations with increased Google Drive storage and early access to new products.
The program is based on accumulating points for suggesting edits, leaving reviews, and taking pictures (of your food). A certain point total qualifies you at different levels for rewards. Guides that reach level two will now have early access to new Google products and features like the recent beta version of Chrome for iOS. Level three Guides will receive a badge on their profile, indicating when a review or informational note has been notched by a verified and trusted Guide.
It’s level four that the Internet is mostly excited about: Guides that reach level four will receive 1 TB of data storage on Google Drive for free, which is worth about $10 per month. Given Microsoft’s recent decision to rollback OneDrive storage, this is now one way that those seeking an additional terabyte of cloud storage could receive it. At level five, Guides will qualify to attend the first Local Guides summit in 2016, the details of which Google has not yet announced.
Google is expanding its Local Guides program, and continues to follow their work from the past year to fill Google Maps with more relevant information. This latest program is characterized as a “win-win” by Google in their promotional video.
