What is a Google Plus Code?
A new location mapping feature by Google!
How many times have you done a google search for a business and you’ve seen that weird symbol that looks like a target underneath the business’ address? Has your natural inquisitive nature made you ask the question, “What in the world is that?”
Welcome to the world of “Google Plus Codes! In the Google blog, Rasťo Šrámek, a software engineer, explains, “Last April we released a new system to help provide an address for every location in the world, called Open Location Code (OLC, also known as ‘plus codes’). You can find the plus code for your location at http://plus.codes.
Today, plus codes are now searchable on Google and Google Maps. Plus codes are a useful way of representing locations that don’t have specific street addresses. These codes become extremely helpful in places with high population density but poor data accuracy or coverage, or those that lack a specific addressing system altogether. These codes can help many different people, in many parts of the world: Small businesses rely on customers being able to find them. Crisis response organizations rely on accurate location information–often long distances from established roads and buildings–to provide aid and save lives.”
The main benefits from this more advanced mapping process:
- The google plus code provides longitude and latitude coordinates for the better absolute location of a physical building or road (see image below for reference)
- Google plus codes provide more specific navigation of foreign places in the absence of local knowledge of an area or country.
- Google plus codes significantly decrease the chance of customers getting lost finding a local business and increases the survival rate of people in a crisis situation.
After reading this what are your thoughts? There seems to be a lot of positives, but also what might be the potential negatives to this kind of technology?
