Yesterday, in light of Apple’s latest map updates, we examined the features arms race in the world of online mapping. Now Snap has fired the latest shot with restaurant recommendations in Snap Map. This comes as mapping continues to be an area of emphasis and investment in Snap’s product mix.
Restaurant recommendations come about through a partnership with The Infatuation. Specifically, nearby restaurants are featured in a new “Layer” on Snap Map. It’s available in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, Austin, Seattle, Philadelphia, Miami, Atlanta, Denver, D.C, and London.
Users can activate the layer through a menu in the upper right corner of the map. Once they chose The Infatuation, they’ll see nearby restaurants. After selecting a restaurant, users can then see details and recommendations before sharing the listiing with friends, or saving them for later local adventures.
As background, Snap Map geo-tags users and their Snaps on a map interface. 250 million Snapchatters are out and about using it to find each other. This includes an active Gen-Z-user base that has $323 billion in direct purchasing power and $1.2 trillion in indirect purchasing power, Snap’s Alex Dao told us.
From Food to Fashion.
Going deeper on the new feature, it’s one of many “layers” that will develop in Snap Map. These layers were announced in November, and represent thematic filters in the mapping UX that users can toggle on and off, depending on their interests. Layers will develop for everything from food to fashion.
The point, as noted above by Dao, is to engender IRL local activity. That not only creates stickiness among users but opens the door for local commerce-based monetization (more on that in a bit). But the first step is to start to build out more content and map layers to develop user traction.
To do that, in true Snap fashion, it’s partnering with best-of-breed data/content providers in vertical areas of interest. For example, its first layer was done in partnership with Ticketmaster to help users discover nearby events. Users swipe left and right to see what’s nearby – a familiar interface, a la Tinder.
The Infatuation is now out of the gate as its second map layer and we expect more to come. Given Snap’s fashion-forward persona, we predict upcoming layers from retail or fashion brands that highlight nearby product drops. Sports, flash sales, or anything that’s temporal also comes to mind.
Social Relevance
Backing up and returning to the broader topic of Snap Map’s ongoing development, the thought is that social interaction is tied to the real world to a large degree. So if Snap can add layers of social relevance based on where you are (opted-in of course), it can deepen user connections and engagement.
This was behind Snap’s 2017 acquisition of Placed, which it subsequently divested for other reasons. It has since shown ample intent to carry the social mapping baton farther. This includes Layers and other functions that infuse the digital and physical worlds (side-note: this is the theme of Localogy Place).
And of course, there’s a monetization endgame. All of the above could support Snap’s Promote Local Place. This program lets SMBs buy map-based promotions on Snap Map in a self-serve manner. Beyond SMBs, larger brands may also be interested in Snap’s broader ad options to drive local commerce.
As Snap continues to execute this mapping master plan, it could take share from Google Maps and Apple Maps. In fact, it has an edge given its social spin on local search. Finding things to do in the context of local friend activity has meaning to Gen-Z. We’ll watch for signs of any resulting market-share gains.
