A field trip with Google in London

By Steve Keenan

I had an email this week from a contact in Amsterdam inviting me to join him this Saturday on a wander through East London.

The walk is with Google. Or more precisely, with the people from Field Trip, its augmented reality app which has now gone worldwide after a slowburn in the US and UK.

My Amsterdam friend, Bart van Poll, will be there with his London team from Spotted by Locals. His site is one of the information providers whose content is being used by Google to fill the app.

It was a nice surprise to hear from him, as it was to read up about Field Trip on Bart’s blog. I’d heard about the app a year ago but, as with so many other apps, had then thought no more about it. But Field Trip has moved on.

Augmented reality (AR) basically means using your smartphone to pick up information about places or events near you, in this case by linking it to Google maps so that your phone knows where you are and can push information to you (as much or as little as you want).

Publishers have been busy properly tagging content for Field Trip to pick up, with information coming from a variety of sources. Where I live in north London, there were several nearby places tagged with info from providers such as London Remembers, Open Buildings and Mimoa.

These three alone gave me a wealth of new information about buildings, architecture, plaques and other historical remnants all within a few hundred metres of my home. It even included Google’s new headquarters in King’s Cross (so that’s where it is….).

Architecture and Historic Places and Events are two of the ‘interests’ tabs on the app, and are probably the most, well, interesting (see list, left). Another is food/drinks/fun. Looking at the map, there were dozens of entries here within 1,000m but results were more mixed. A review of Caravan, a restaurant/bar in Granary Square, King’s Cross, was from Thrillist but is a year old and pretty perfunctory with a missing link. You get so many words on the app, then are invited to click through to the full article.

Zagat, which Google bought, also has its reviews on the app. But some are also old. However, Bart’s Spotted by Locals - which is updated regularly by resident Spotters - is there, along with familiar sites Londonist, Time Out and London on the Inside.

Another I was pleased to find is Bacon is Magic, run by Ayngelina Brogan. She told me: “They (Google) approached me for it (the content). I guess someone at Google reads my site. They don’t pay me for it which is why I agreed to only the first 100 words of each post.

“It’s actually really easy to tag. They tagged all of my old posts and moving forward there is a plug-in at the bottom of my post where I simply indicate what city/country it’s about.”

So the incentive for providers is the links. Which is good for Bart and Ayngelina, but you do wonder about the Zagats of the world.

Anyway, the London walk this weekend is one of four being staged by Google, and the only one outside the US. You can sign up for the walk here - there appears to be no joining qualification, other than space available (there were still places yesterday afternoon). Go along and give Field Trip a try - I’d be interested to hear your thoughts.