Google Maps integrates more travel data, AR in an artful data mashup

Google Maps has the potential to be a destination all by itself as the search giant continues to add features and integrate more data into the application.

If you want to know the value of location data and how companies like Apple and Microsoft want to control their own map layer look no farther than the Google Maps update today.

Google outlined updates that will put your flight and hotel reservations in one place within Google Maps. Aside from being handy--Google already does this somewhat via Gmail and Android notifications--the company can give you contextually relevant data quickly. Your trips will be under a Your Places and Reservations tab within Google Maps.

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For business travelers, the Google Maps integration with trips will be a handy feature a few times a year.

Google Maps also added a feature called Live View that will aim to bring more augmented reality to the customer base. The data integration here includes augmented reality with its Google's local guide reviews of places. Toss in Street View and you see the use cases.

The obvious win for Google will be integrating restaurants, trips, travel and its location data with advertising. From there, Google Assistant can make you reservations in the not-too-distant future.

Here's the bottom line: Google is increasingly disaggregating search into more of its properties. You can easily argue that YouTube is a search engine all by itself. Google Maps will likely be the same. These properties all use Google's search, but the data integration that the search giant can provide is what differentiates it from its primary rivals.