Google Maps will let you chat with businesses

Earlier today, 9to5Google A new feature for Google Maps: messaging businesses. After it rolls out to iPhone and Android users, there will be a new "messages" button on the left-hand Google map.

A business that wants to participate to help you use Google's "My Business" and receive messages. That app was just overhauled, as Adweek notes – making it more than a one-stop shop for small businesses to update their information for Google and to chat with customers.

I'm just going to tell you right now that this is a new feature and we're going to explore them together.

First: this is a genuinely useful feature. More than ounce I just wanted to ask a store or a quick question that is not covered by their website and would be willing to wait for the answer. I've spent a few days listening to a colleague over at curbed call up local businesses one by one to find out if they still have respirators in stock in Northern California, for example. Texting could theoretically be more convenient for everybody involved. It's a little less interruptive for the employee, simpler for the customer. Net-net: nice.

But second, let's make the easy joke that Google can not seem to stop primary messaging platform strategy is still a mess? Yes, yes we shall. Hangouts is dead for consumers and Allo is "paused" and SCR Chat still did not start here in the US Neither AT & T nor Verizon will commit to a launch date. (I asked them both this week.)

I bring up business, but it's a good example of how business messaging is quickly becoming big business. It's part of the plan for RCS Chat, it exists inside Facebook Messenger and iMessage, and it's a big part of the eventual business plan for WhatsApp. So it makes sense that Google would want to be in this space, and honestly, it makes some sense to put it inside Maps instead of another messaging app. As Google notes, it keeps your business chat messages separate from your personal messages.

So let's leave this message and give Google this one. It can not push the business messaging inside Android Messages, because it can not leverage the RCS, because it has a strong control of its message platform to the whims of its carrier partners. Putting business messaging inside Google Maps is a good solution in that context. And anyway, this messaging feature already exists and is here that you can get to it inside Google Maps.

But that leads me to my third feeling: what is the heck with Google Maps? It is becoming overburdened with so many features and design changes that it's becoming harder and harder to just get directions in it. There's a group planning, there's a social-esque "follow" button for local businesses, you can share your ETAThere's a redesigned "Explore" section, and there's almost no point in getting lost in the world.

It's becoming bloated, is what I'm saying. It's Google's equivalent of Big Blue, a Facebook nicknames its flagship app that does a thousand things across countless strange nooks and crannies. It's as though Google wants to kill it and it's going to be so bad.

These have been my feelings about Google adding messaging functionality to Maps, which is a pretty good feature. Thank you for experiencing them with me.