You need to log-in to use it. It's supposed to be a way that you can improve the Paces results that you and your friends get.

Hotpot is an online, friends-based recommendation engine that takes scores you give places using Google Maps 4.7′s new homescreen rating widget, and uses that information to improve your own place search results and those of your friends.

[slashgear.com...] 9/}0

Most places in my local area are pointing at the wrong building. I made lots of recommended changes one day several months ago, and still nothing has changed.

This is how Google kills Yelp and similar sites.

Google already has access to all the review data but now it's time to own it.

Monopoly, squared.

You have to be logged in BUT...

Set your public Google Places nickname, your ratings of places are public on the web with this nickname.

Pass, I really don't feel the desire to provide Google with more logged in yet public data. Quite frankly that's largely because I don't like what they do with my website data already. ie: showing my images without sending the visitor, offering a cache copy and screenshot of my site without sending the visitor, using my site as part of their rankings but shoving tons of ways for THEM to make money ahead of those natural rankings... etc.

Google already has access to all the review data but now it's time to own it.

Absolutely. If you own the data you can move away from a country-wide search engine and create what essentially becomes tons of mini search engines covering lots of smaller areas. This in turn provides Google with the ability to offer "local" business ad opportunities while charging more from bigger companies to appear country-wide.

It all makes one wonder if Google even wants 3rd party sites in their vision of the future.

I've observed that my tastes match up differently for different things with different friends. I doubt that Google's going to get it right when close friends and I still notice "irreconcilable differences" among us after a great many years.

I should add that collaborative filtering models I've seen almost always get it wrong, as they tend to correlate taste with easily identifiable categories rather than along qualitative lines in apparently dissimilar categories.

I'm just surprised that no one has mentioned how terrible that name is.

I don't see this being successful in the long term. Yelp has a strong cult-ish following. I know people who won't go to restaurant unless it meets with their favorite yelpers approval...

I have heard other comments about how bad the name choice is. Some say they keep calling it "Hot Pocket".

I kept thinking it was HotSpot... Kind of an odd name, but not in a catchy way.

Looks like hotchpotch [en.wikipedia.org] to me, are they desperately seeking an application for their 'squared' product?

Fits in well with their goal of strong-arming their visitors logged in to the service.

It all makes one wonder if Google even wants 3rd party sites in their vision of the future.

Agreed. If the business owner has provided (say) a menu, coupon, storefront photos, and you have the location, contact details and user reviews, do you need to go to the site?

Whilst I like the core ethos 'It's not what you say about yourself, it's what others say about you', the more Google folds into their own site the more they become a threat to business model after business model - and ultimately perhaps site owners themselves. The information there isn't bang up to date like a 'deal of the day' or 'latest news' would be on your own site.

As others have said, the fact that this is a bit of an unmoderated, algorithmic hotchpotch means that Yelp, Qype etc do provide a better experience - but will Joe Average notice/care? Don't think so.

If anyone doesn't like the name just wait 5 minutes, I'm sure they'll change it...Froogle...Product Search...Merchant Center... Maps...Local...Places...