As someone who frequently travels abroad, I've long wondered why we don't have our own "Google Maps" in China.

What I mean is, our maps used to be essentially "pure maps." Even when Gaode offered ride-hailing services, the services provided by maps were basically limited to transportation. Google, on the other hand, offered rich local life services.

So abroad, Google Maps was incredibly useful. You could search for a restaurant's location, search for nearby restaurants based on your location, see what dishes each restaurant served, what reviews they received, and their overall ratings - all at a glance. In 2023, in Athens, my husband and I found a highly-rated Japanese fusion restaurant through Google Maps that was so delicious it brought us to tears, becoming our deepest memory from that trip.

Although Google's ratings are just traditional manual customer ratings, the combination of maps and local life services already provided a smoother experience.

Having had many such experiences, I've long believed China should have its own "Google Maps." Of course, I also knew this required the right timing. So when Gaode launched its Street Scanning List on September 10th, I wasn't surprised at all. I believe Gaode, with its 1 billion users, finally found its moment.

Business requires timing, otherwise efforts are doubled while results are halved. This year's flash commerce battle is essentially a deep exploration of O2O scenario value. The participating internet giants have all allocated their highest resources, maximizing the industry's development momentum. The timing Gaode needed finally arrived.

But I was still somewhat surprised by the final form of Gaode's Street Scanning List. It's not the traditional map + reviews model, but an AI-powered offline credit service system based on "behavior + credibility." This goes beyond Google Maps.

The emergence of "Gaode Street Scanning List" is a milestone, indicating that Gaode has figured things out and taken action. Strictly speaking, rankings are an operational tool - both a lever for creating healthy business growth and a guide for user behavior.

If rankings are catfish, they must be in a huge pond, completing the activation tasks assigned by the organization.

Sure enough, a few days ago, Gaode announced free annual membership fees for all dining establishments nationwide, providing traffic subsidies, dedicated customer service, smart payment systems, and other digital support services. Less than 24 hours after this support policy was announced, on September 23rd alone, the number of new dining establishments joining Gaode surged 631% day-over-day, creating a historic peak.

Many shop owners have felt that after being listed on Gaode's Street Scanning List, their business increased by 30%. A large number of small neighborhood restaurants are experiencing doubled traffic growth.

Undoubtedly, Gaode aims to become a truly AI-based super entrance for offline life services - currently the only one we have. Moreover, it wants to use this "super entrance" to bring new growth to 8 million restaurants.

Now, just two weeks later, the real growth brought by this ranking list is beginning to show.

**01**

The full name of dine-in consumption should be "going to the store and consuming in the store," so a complete dine-in consumption behavior includes two stages: first "going," then "being there." Interestingly, for a long time, online platforms handled these two actions separately.

Regardless of the method, when you see a store on an app and view some recommended content, if you want to try it and click the address link, several jump links appear, pointing to different map apps, with Gaode being the most used.

But in the past, if you opened Gaode Map first, it basically only handled the "going" function, though through this map, you could accurately reach 99.99% of stores.

Unconsciously, this largest online map in China has covered over 7 million restaurant locations nationwide. Currently, it handles 120 million daily searches related to life services and navigation to 13 million life service destinations.

So within the Alibaba ecosystem, Gaode is best positioned to achieve dine-in commercial loop closure - it just needs to take one more step forward, getting closer to consumption.

On September 10th this year, Gaode's Street Scanning List finally fired the first shot in dine-in services.

This first shot directly created a new species. Gaode's Street Scanning List generates rankings based on users' actual navigation behavior (such as "Attraction Rankings," "Hotel Rankings," "Food Rankings"). Opening the Street Scanning List, users see rankings corresponding to different types of behavior, including the "Tire Wear List" showing long-distance dedicated visits, the "Return Customer List" showing repeat visits, and various other categories like local favorites, city characteristic experiences, and high-rated neighborhood gems, with each category updated daily based on dynamic data.

The effect of this first shot was a direct traffic explosion - on the first day, Street Scanning List users exceeded 40 million. But more importantly, the Street Scanning List uses rankings to present user voting results based on "behavior + credibility" as the core and AI as the technical means.

First, Gaode Map can calculate the most authentic actions of scaled users regarding a particular restaurant through AI technology, such as "whether they actually went to eat," "whether they're return customers," "whether they made a special trip," etc. In the "behavior dimension," it integrates multi-dimensional indicators including navigation, search, store visits, and favorites, comprehensively recreating the user consumption decision process.

In the "credibility dimension," Gaode not only uses AI technology to strictly filter reviews for authenticity, professionalism, timeliness, and content quality, eliminating fake reviews, but also innovatively introduces Alipay's Sesame Credit system, weighting reviews based on user credit levels - the higher the user's credit level, the greater their review weight, further ensuring review credibility.

All this makes the Street Scanning List a truly authentic ranking that cannot and does not need operational manipulation.

**02**

In various competitive scenarios, "voting with your feet" is repeatedly used. This is because the subtext of this phrase is that users actually go and actually consume - otherwise, no one would wear out their tires just to circle around a store entrance.

It represents very intuitive persuasive power. Many people may not realize that voting with your feet also has considerable directive power - the subtext is that many people have been there, so you should just go.

Go to those stores that never market but are genuinely delicious.

For example, "Happy Restaurant," ranked first in Zhenjiang Northeast cuisine. The owner himself is an internet celebrity with millions of fans, but he previously never used his online popularity to market his restaurant, believing he should win customers with authentic taste and reputation. Owner Kai Xiangrong discovered that since being listed on Gaode, more customers come to eat daily - he estimates about 30% are customers who navigated there specifically after seeing the Gaode Street Scanning List, because "every phone call to the restaurant mentions Gaode Map."

Go to the user-voted "Michelin" restaurants.

After joining Gaode, Guangzhou's veteran Shunde cuisine restaurant Zi Zhou Lou quickly topped Gaode's Street Scanning List champion ranking. As they say, "the best food is in Guangzhou," and the city is full of food connoisseurs. Being voted champion by the people is much harder than conquering a few judges. So founder Wang Wei, who has won numerous awards, was so excited he expressed deep emotion: "Back then, to find suitable ingredients, I led my team searching everywhere, eating roast goose for a month straight."

You should also experience the local atmosphere.

Gaode's Street Scanning List has a sub-ranking called "Neighborhood Gems" designed to give small restaurants hidden in streets and alleys, without money or energy for marketing, their "day in the sun."

For example, in Beijing, a batch of "small stores hidden in hutongs" emerged this way. Beijing's TOP10 neighborhood gems include Hongfu Liang Restaurant (Xizhimen Branch), Wanhong Road Lamb Soup Pancake Shop, Guo Er Tiao, Xinxin Hunan Restaurant, Xiangyun Xuan (Fayuan Temple West Li Branch), Miu Family Steamed Bun Shop (Chengxian Street Branch), Shancheng Hai La Ke, Lao Guniang Baoding Donkey Meat Sandwich, Xisifang Restaurant, and Yulin Wangfa Dumpling House. These small stores were all "voted" by Gaode Map users, with comprehensive ratings above 4.6 points.

The neighborhood gems ranking is particularly popular. In an era where pre-made dishes are increasingly common, people really miss that "wok hei" flavor. In the first week after Gaode's Street Scanning List launched, traffic to restaurants on the neighborhood gems list surged 187%.

Now, more neighborhood gems are experiencing traffic explosions:

Data shows that in Guangzhou, "Pepper Pork Belly Soup Kangwang Store," which has been open for 11 years, saw average traffic growth of 540% in these two weeks; in Shanghai, a Hunan cuisine family restaurant called "Hunan Family" saw traffic triple; in Beijing, a Guizhou rice noodle shop on Minzu University West Road also saw nearly 300% traffic growth; Chengdu's Hongxing Mao Roast Duck Shop also experienced over 200% traffic growth.

At one point, skeptics thought people often dine in shopping malls, which are destinations for travel but not necessarily consumption endpoints, so Street Scanning List couldn't reflect people's true preferences.

But facts prove that through AI technology, Gaode's Street Scanning List presents consumers' most authentic trajectories and experiences, bringing real business growth to merchants.

This ranking also proves people's preference for good flavors and authentic tastes. After all, people go out to seek food not just for survival necessities, but as cherishment of life: only good food can heal life's scattered troubles.

No matter how frustrated, as long as you eat well and fully, you can puff out your little chest and be the best little lamb. People are willing to wear down tires and shoe soles for neighborhood gems that comfort their taste buds and stomachs, finally moving their little fingers to leave reviews. In this era of prevalent lying down and mutual inaction, this represents the most authentic expression.

Truly reflecting user choices. Whether a restaurant is delicious or a scenic spot is worth visiting, "voting with your feet" actions are more persuasive. With these authentic footprints and reviews, Gaode Map becomes a treasure map with superpowers, guiding more people to go and explore together.

Just two weeks after opening, the "Neighborhood Gems List" will expand to 22 more cities, including Haikou, Zhuhai, and Qinhuangdao, where sea breezes blow and it's prime season for fat crabs.

**03**

Currently, not only are users voting with their feet, but merchants are also starting to vote, accelerating their embrace of Gaode. Within two weeks, over 2,000 restaurants nationwide have hung up "Gaode Street Scanning List Featured Restaurant" signs.

On the day of listing, Kai Xiangrong even hired lion dancers to celebrate. As a major internet celebrity who has run Happy Restaurant for over a decade, he certainly wouldn't get excited enough for drums and gongs just for an award. Essentially, it's because he found fertile land to cultivate - land that doesn't require much water or fertilizer but can still grow good crops.

As is well known, the restaurant industry is currently experiencing painful adjustments, with highly competitive markets and even squeeze-out effects. Almost all merchants are trying to find new traffic, promote new consumption, and retain new customers.

Undoubtedly, these new customers exist among Gaode's 1 billion users, a considerable portion of whom are not covered by traditional dine-in platforms. This is an opportunity on the table and the underlying logic for why Gaode and merchants formed an alliance so quickly.

But dine-in is an online-to-offline business with a considerable chain, including online traffic generation, operational conversion, and in-store conversion. So to build a complete dine-in business ecosystem, Gaode must both create and activate traffic pools while providing operational tools for merchants.

Alongside launching the Street Scanning List, Gaode also introduced the "Neighborhood Gem Support Program," distributing over 1 billion in subsidies and other measures to encourage users to dine in stores, hoping to bring 10 million additional customers daily to offline dining and other service industries.

On September 20th, Gaode, Ele.me, and Taobao Flash Shopping jointly launched dine-in group buying services. On September 23rd, Gaode announced free annual membership fees for all dining establishments nationwide.

Reportedly, Gaode's merchant service hotline has been overwhelmed these days, with the entire merchant team working overtime to fully support merchant onboarding needs.

"This support policy targets all dining establishments, regardless of size, with no barriers. Inquiries come from large stores and established restaurants, as well as many neighborhood gems and family-run stores. Some merchants even urgently contacted us in the middle of the night for onboarding. The inquiry volume is huge - everyone is particularly enthusiastic about zero-cost store opening and free digital services, hoping to experience them quickly and capture Golden Week traffic opportunities," said Gaode's merchant growth manager.

With large numbers of merchants beginning to inquire about joining Gaode and the establishment and prosperity of the merchant ecosystem, Gaode is building an AI-powered "Google Maps." Looking at current trends, this day is not far off.

Back to that time in Athens, through Google Maps, I brought my family who had cried over Mediterranean food to find a small Chinese restaurant in a corner - very small, with a Beijing owner who made authentic boiled fish. Without Google Maps, we would have missed our homesickness, and the owner would have missed familiar voices.

These days, if you navigate from Gaode Map to Hongfu Liang Restaurant, ranked first in Beijing's neighborhood gems list by popularity, you'll find this small store located in Nancaochang Hutong. Despite its dated decoration and cramped space, by noon, the waiting number has already reached 20.