The free service went live at 10 p.m., October 10th Taiwan time. Since then, many businesses, mostly restaurants, coffee shops and bookstores, have created photo listings with contact information and directions. Hsinyi Real Estate, for example, has created multiple listings on Google Taiwan Maps showing photos of apartments for sale.

In addition to location based listings, the new Google Maps Taiwan features real-time traffic reports and parking space availability for Taipei City, a joint effort with the Taipei City Government, according to Chien Lee-feng, Engineering Director of the Google R&D Center in Taiwan, that’s exclusive to Taiwan.

The look and feel of Google Maps remains similar - users start with a full map of Taiwan then zoom in on the region of interested, now with the addition of “tools” that display different listing types and, in the case of Taipei City, parking space and traffic information. Users can also add videos and picture slideshows from Google’s video sharing website YouTube and photo-sharing website Picasa to their Google Maps listings.

For extra exposure on Google Maps Taiwan, fee-based “sponsored searches” that highlight listings in a specific area are also available.

“While the listing service is open to everyone, and we encourage associations, museums, and tourism bureaus to take advantage of the platform to make their locations more visible to visitors,” Chien said, Google will monitor for illegal activities, such as drug trafficking and prostitution, and block users who violate Taiwan laws or Google Maps’ usage agreement.

According to Google, over four million users worldwide, mostly in the U.S., Europe, Japan, and South Korea, have created personal information on local Google Maps.