Google Maps will allow you to chat with companies

Earlier today, 9to5Google told us a Google blog post announcing a new feature of Google Maps: courier companies. Once it's available to iPhone and Android users, a new "Messages" button will appear in the left slide drawer for you to send messages to businesses that you found in Google Maps.

A company wishing to participate will have to use Google's "My Business" verification system and its badociated application to send and receive messages. Adweek states that this application has been completely modified, making it a one-stop shop for small businesses to update their information for Google and chat with customers.

I'm just going to tell you now that I have many conflicting feelings about this new feature and we're going to explore them together.

First: it seems to be a really useful feature. More than once, I simply wanted to ask a store or restaurant a quick question that is not covered by their website and I would be ready to wait for the answer. I spent the last few days listening to a colleague at the address Curbed call local businesses one by one to find out if any respirators are still in stock as a result of the fires occurring here in northern California, for example. . Sending SMS could theoretically be more convenient for everyone involved. It's a little less interactive for the store employee, easier for the customer. Net-net: nice.

But second, should we easily blame Google for failing to stop launching new messaging platforms while its main messaging platform strategy is still a mess? Yes, yes we will. Hango is dead for consumers and Allo is "on break" and RCS The cat has still not been launched in the United States by all major carriers. Neither AT & T nor Verizon will commit to a launch date. (I asked them both this week.)

I'm talking about RCS not only for cheap shooting, but also because it's a good example of how 'business messaging' works. Is fast becoming a big business. This is part of the plan for the RCS chat, it exists in Facebook Messenger and iMessage, and is an integral part of the eventual business plan of WhatsApp. So it makes sense that Google wants to be in this space and, honestly, it makes sense to put it in Google Maps instead of another email application. As Google notes, your business discussion messages are separated from your personal messages.

Let's leave messages behind and give this one to Google. It's not possible to push business messaging further into Android Messages because it can not exploit RCS because it has lost control of its messaging platform to the whims of its trading partners. Putting business email in Google Maps is a good solution in this context. Whatever it is, this messaging feature already existed and the news here is simply that you can access it in Google Maps.

But that leads me to a third feeling: what's going on with Google Maps? Features and changes to system design are becoming more and more cumbersome. It's getting harder and harder to get instructions. There is group planning, there is a social button "follow" for local businesses, you can share your ETA there is a redesigned "Explorer" section, and there is no has almost no way to get the damn thing out of showing you a cross street near your destination without three full minutes of pinching, zooming and re-zooming desperately.

It's more and more inflated, that's what I'm saying. This is the equivalent of Google's Big Blue, because Facebook is nicknamed its flagship application that does a thousand things across countless strange nooks. It's as if Google wanted to kill Yelp once and for all, but did not let anyone notice how much it was trying to do it, so it was slowing things down in Google Maps instead. adding an email feature to Google Maps, which overall seems to be a very good feature. Thank you for having lived with me.