Google will now tell you whether a bar or shop is busy in real-time | Hacker News Reader

Google will now tell you whether a bar or shop is busy in real-time

theguardian.com

28 pointsjsingleton13 comments

Is it possible to order and pay for food as you're heading to a restaurant so it will be ready soon after you arrive (through seamless or something else)? I imagine this will be the norm someday soon.

Sounds like what the Chipotle or Starbucks apps do right now.

I use the Ritual app in Chicago for just that.

First traffic, now this. Next up, how busy is your train?

It's not clear how they get the data for this. Assuming it's the same tech as for minor road traffic then it probably uses Google's location services on Android devices.

hmmmm, not sure about this. It could play out badly for business owners. how does google determine if a place should now be deemed full? how do they calculate capacity without understanding each business model and operational workflows?

some stores might look full but actually service their customers in average times? they might have provisioning tills for when N customers are in store? What if some people do not use google services?

If I was a business owner I would be angry at the possibility of google turning away potential customers because of what it thinks my business can handle without any accurate data.

It is very scary. Google maps has the feature that tells you something is closed or about to close. If it's late, I get the info from the store website and know exactly when it closes.

Then I get in my car and pull up Google Maps. There has been times Google would tell me it's closed already!

I appreciate the assistance but think it should not be so confident in telling me it's closed. The average person may just forgo the trip. Maybe give the website to verify or give the phone number to call and verify.

Uhh what? I think that makes perfect sense for google maps to tell you if its closed. I mean would you really want to drive there and get to a closed shop?

Uuh what? The store is not closed. Google maps says it is. Google maps has been wrong on closing times.

Anyone who listens to google maps without verifying at the source will be basing their decision on wrong information, which leads to loss of business to store owners, which is why it's scary for business owners.

Which is why if I go to a local business and feel it might be near closing time, I will verify at the source and not rely on Google maps.

I could see this potentially hurting some businesses example - bars, many people won't want to go to bar that isn't "happening."

I reckon it is not busy-ness in absolute sense. But busy-ness relative to the rest of the opening hours of the place.

It already does that

Shout out to http://www.avoidhumans.com/ which tells you which shops/restaurants are NOT busy. If you're ever on the road and need somewhere quiet for a phone call, this is a lifesaver.

Hopefully they can integrate the Google data too to improve accuracy

I feel like I've seen a startup doing something along these lines, which will probably die now that Google did it.

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