Google has made its ‘Hotpot’ recommendation engine – allowing people to rate and review places that you visit – into a permanent part of Google Places and losing the slightly odd moniker.
The search giant launched Hotpot back in November and has been pleased with the feature, with the community now apparently numbering in the millions.
“It’s been incredibly exciting to watch Hotpot grow,” blogged product manager Lior Ron.
“The community has quickly expanded to millions of users who are rating more than one million times per month and enjoying a truly personalised view of the world.
“Based on this success, we’ve decided to graduate Hotpot to be a permanent part of our core local product offering, Google Places.
“Rolling Hotpot into Google Places helps simplify the connection between the places that are rated and reviewed and the more than 50 million places that already have an online presence through Google Places – places that millions of people search for and find every day on Google.”
Hotpotness
Ron believes that the service will become increasingly important, and more features are on the way.
“Though the name Hotpot may be going away, you can expect even more “Hotpotness” in Google Places.
“We have big plans to continue adding more features to Google Places that make it even easier to rate, discover and share the places you love whenever you’re using Google.
“So stay tuned to the new Google Places Blog for product updates, tips, tricks and news from our city campaigns.”
