By the opening day of the Olympic Games in Sochi in 2014 Google will have introduced special maps, to help visitors explore the town and venues.
The service will likely follow the usual pattern: a user in search of a restaurant can type in the word "restaurant" to receive a selection of eateries located nearby. Geopositioning of a user is a key to success, and Street View allows to take a glance at the place before crossing its doorstep.
Google aims the service at foreign visitors to the Olympic Games. As for Russian/Ukranian speakers, they are likely to stick to Yandex Maps. Yandex has been providing a similar service for the past 4 years, and their representatives believe there is little else Google can offer to a Russian user to take them away from the convenient and long-used Yandex.
Author: Julia Shuvalova