If you ever need to go anywhere, chances are you will open up Google Maps to help you figure out how to get there. There are other good apps for planning journeys, trips, and vacations such as City Mapper, but most of us just use Google Maps. But there may soon be another pretender to Google Maps’ throne and this one might just be able to take a fair amount of Google Maps users. Step forward Instagram.
In an Instagram Story, Mark Zuckerberg announced that Instagram is soon to have a dynamic map tool that users will be able to use to search for and tag locations. This is big news as Instagram is already a very good tool for finding great new places to go to so adding a map to an already good discovery tool is big news.
The kicker here is that users will be able to tag locations with specific categories such as bars, restaurants, cafes, etc., which means other users will be able to simply and effectively find whatever it is they are looking for.
The new map search feature will allow users to get a visual sense of a location as well as see lots of user-generated content too. In the post talking about the new post, Instagram said:
“The dynamic, searchable map allows users to have a more personalized and immersive experience when discovering popular locations and businesses and to see what’s nearby, via tagged posts, stories, and guides shared by the Instagram community. Users can also find relevant locations on the map when searching certain hashtags.”
This update for Instagram really could start taking some of the users that Google Maps has been able to count on for years.
According to Meta, the feature is already available and rolling out to users now. If you can’t see it on your phone just yet, don’t worry, it can take a while to roll out new features to over 1.2 billion users.
In other Instagram news, the social network has recently started looking into NFT integration on the app.
