Google expands Neighbourly app to five more cities in India

The latest version of the Neighbourly app includes enhanced voice input, quicker replies and “similar answers” feature -- that would detect and group similar answers.

Google’s Neighbourly app is available on Play Store. (Google)

Google's "Neighbourly" app, which helps users with local information like nearby shopping arcades, parks, fitness, food and tuition centres is now rolling out to Indian cities such as Ahmedabad, Coimbatore, Mysore, Vizag, and Kota.

The beta version of "Neighbourly" is available on the Google Play Store for all Android devices across these seven cities in India.

"With 'Neighbourly', we are able to address the local information needs of India's fast-growing internet users in their neighbourhood," Josh Woodward, Group Product Manager, Next Billion Users team, Google, said in a statement on Wednesday.

 

From trusted information to local expertise, Neighbourly is a human, helpful way to ask and answer questions about your neighbourhood. Now available in Ahmedabad, Vizag, Coimbatore, Mysore & Kota. Get it at https://t.co/ijKus4Pm4F #IAmNeighbourly pic.twitter.com/reo4HkigL9

— Google India (@GoogleIndia) September 12, 2018

The latest version of the application includes enhanced voice input, thus, allowing people to ask and respond to questions in their own languages, quicker replies and "similar answers" feature -- that would detect and group similar answers.

"The app was first rolled out to Mumbai and Jaipur and 20% of people tap to speak their question and each question, spoken or written, gets an average of four relevant, trusted answers," Google said.

The launch took place after the company's extensive user testing in the past several months, where Google's "Next Billion Users" team conducted a series of studies and spoke to locals in neighbourhoods.

"The response was encouraging -- especially among women, students and daily commuters -- and people appreciated using their local language to ask questions to their neighbours and sharing their own knowledge with others," the firm added.