Streets Ahead: TikTok Adds Yelp-Like Features, AI Overviews
In this week’s Streets Ahead update we learn about TikTok adding Yelp-like features and Google’s updates to AI Overviews.
TikTok Adds Yelp-Like Features
The News TikTok is adding features similar to Yelp, categorizing location-specific videos into segments such as food and drink, hotels, and shopping. This update aims to improve user experience by making it easier to find relevant videos based on specific needs. Currently, this feature is being introduced in select U.S. locations. Additionally, TikTok has integrated an “explore more places” button with Apple Maps, allowing users to view a map of tagged businesses, including their addresses and price ranges. While the exact rollout date is unconfirmed, this functionality represents a strategic shift in TikTok’s service offerings.
Why This Matters This development is important for multi-location marketers. By organizing user-generated content (UGC) into categories and providing detailed business information, TikTok is becoming a valuable tool for local businesses targeting younger, tech-savvy customers. This move offers marketers a new way to reach potential customers who might prefer a more interactive, visual experience over traditional search engines and review sites. Marketers should leverage TikTok’s evolving features to enhance visibility and engagement for local businesses, aligning their strategies with this new trend in consumer behavior.
Google Updates AI Overviews
The News Google is updating its AI Overviews with features aimed at improving user interaction and citation clarity. A significant update allows users to save AI Overviews to their Google Interests section. Users who opt into labs and see AI Overviews now have a “Save” button at the bottom of the overview. Clicking this button saves the AI overview and the related search to a private collection within the Google Search App, making it easy to revisit and manage AI-generated content.
Glenn Gabe highlighted this feature on X, showing how users receive a confirmation message once the Overview is saved and can access their saved collections like any other in the app.
Another update focuses on transparency in AI-generated answers by adding link icons within the AI Overviews. These icons, located at the top of the overview, serve as citations for AI-generated statements. Clicking the icons opens an overlay window displaying the links in a search result format rather than redirecting directly to the source. This update, also spotted by Glenn Gabe with a non-labs account, aims to provide quick access to source material, improving the reliability of AI-generated information.
Why This Matters These updates are crucial for marketers as they enhance the usability and credibility of AI-generated content. The ability to save AI Overviews helps users manage information more effectively, while the introduction of citation links improves transparency. These features make AI tools more user-friendly and build trust in the provided information. Marketers can now rely on AI Overviews to be accurate and accessible, streamlining their research and content creation processes.
