This way you can know the points you have available to use Google Maps and what they are for.

If you ask any mobile user in Europe what kind of application Google Maps is, the answer is almost certainly an online map. Or a GPS to calculate routes between two points. Few people will call it a social network, although we are getting close. Of course, it is not a typical social network, although social networks are constantly changing and mutating, and Google Maps is no exception.

The conversion of this application into something more than a GPS began many years ago, and little by little it has become that application to turn to when you want to know the ratings of a place, see if the reviews indicate whether it is good or not, view a restaurant menu, make a reservation, find the phone number or website…

All this implies a use of the application which is not the main one, but which is increasingly important. And all these actions They affect our profile in Google Maps, which is linked to the Gmail account. It is the only application from Google that has a level system that turns the use of the application into a game, with scores and emblems, which unfortunately do not have much real use.

This point system varies depending on the actions we take, such as rating a location, uploading a photo or video, or answering a question. To see what points we have, we need to Click on the avatar in the upper right corner of the app and then enter the Your Profile optionwhich will display the main page of our contributions to the social network.

This is where You can see the points we have awardedas well as the photos we have uploaded, among others. If we click on the small arrow next to the points, the menu opens where you can see the distribution of this score. There appear the badge, which are small models awarded based on contributions. They have no real use beyond being collectibles.

At the top of this sheet Points appear, which let us know how much we have left for the next level. There are ten in total, and each one requires many more points than the last, making it very difficult to move up the level sequence.

Google says points can be used to gain early access to certain features, but the truth is that it wastes huge potential in an app that everyone uses and that could become something huge since the user base is already there. Many projects would like to have a tenth of the number of Google Maps users.

It wouldn’t even be necessary to make a big investment, being able to reward those who contributed the most with things like discounts on Google One pricing, or promotions to access some of its hardware products, like the Pixel, which are still extremely unknown to the general public, the same people who know Google Maps very well.