Seems like Google has added a surprise for its latest update of Google Maps for Android, points for Latitude checkins. This new feature gives points for check ins made using Android phones, with a pop leaderboard with animations showing how many points you earn and your performance against others in your circles, just like Foursquare.
The updated app has a fully featured leaderboard that lets you sort out high scores by weeks or at all time. But for now, this leaderboard will appear only when the ‘show more’ button is clicked on after check in. This could mean that Google could have released this feature a little earlier than planned.
Updates Google Support pages for Latitude repeal that there will also be ‘status levels’ like visitor, regular, VIP and guru, that will be determined how often a venue is visited. It looks like Google is aiming to partner up with businesses too. There will be specific check in deals and business owners will be able to customize the status level icons along with names for customers at their stores. However, none of these features are live yet. Information for the official launch of these extras is awaited. But for the time being, an update to Google Maps would be a good start to earning some points. This could just become an online Monopoly, we’ll just have to wait and see.
