Ars Technica: “Google Maps is getting a bunch of new features this week, so it’s time for a roundup! The first feature is definitely one nobody asked for: the new “Community Feed,” which is clearly trying to turn Google Maps into a social network. Google’s blog post says that “Every day, people submit more than 20 million contributions—including recommendations for their favorite spots, updates to business services, fresh reviews and ratings, photos, answers to other people’s questions, updated addresses and more.” So now Google Maps is getting a News Feed full of all these reviews and updates. Google’s sales pitch reads “The feed shows you the latest reviews, photos and posts added to Google Maps by local experts and people you follow as well as food and drink merchants, and articles from publishers like The Infatuation.” All of these updates are in the style of a social network, with the author at the top, a “follow” link for the author, and the ability to “like” posts. The only thing they’re missing are the comments…

For a less controversial addition, how about building numbers and crosswalks? Android Police has spotted even more detail being added to certain cities in Google Maps. If you zoom all the way in on places like NYC, you’ll see striped crosswalk paint in some roads and tiny-little building numbers letting you know where the exact addresses are. These go great with Google Maps’ other recent detail addition: traffic lights. Android Police says this was first spotted in the Android Google Maps Beta, which you can sign up for here. I’m also seeing it on Google Maps on the Web…”