Google added a new advanced feature to Google Maps: multiple destinations. Now, if you need to go to more than one place, you can enter more than one destination (by hitting the new “Add destination” link) and get directions to each place in order.
Not only that, but you can drag and drop the various destinations, optimizing your route and watching as your trip time gets shorter with each change.
This is a great new feature, one that brings Google closer to the options available at some of its more advanced competitors. Google still makes it harder to add destinations than most of the other Web 2.0 maps, by requiring text input for destinations that must fit a perfect, exact, specific syntax. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had trouble getting directions because I entered “137-15″, which is the syntax used on all the homes in my neighborhood, when Google required me to enter “13715″. Google fixed that one very recently, but now they’ve got an even dumber syntax requirement: I have to enter “71st Ave.”, instead of “71 Ave.”. Seriously, if all your PhDs can’t program that one right, you’ve got a problem.
There’s a reason I stick to Microsoft’s Windows Live Local is that if I know where something is, Live Local doesn’t make me feel like I’m using DOS again. I find the place I’m looking for, and right-click on it, and click to add a placemark and get directions. Its that damn easy, and the fact that Microsoft isn’t even the first to do that, and has been doing it for a while, pisses me off about Google Maps and prevents me from counting on it for directions.
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Nathan Weinberg writes the popular InsideGoogle blog, offering the latest news and insights about Google and search engines.
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