“I want to be able to help people like they are helping me,” she said.
The 52-year-old, who also works as an Airbnb host and part-time customer service representative, averages two or three reviews a month rating everything from museums to McDonald’s.
Most locations receive a four or five-star review (except for Mcdonald’s on George Street, which scored three). She’s only given out a handful of one or two-star reviews, for a slow parcel delivery, restaurant with bland food and rundown textile store.
Christie includes information on what a place looks like, what sort of payment and parking options are offered, how to get there and how good the service is. A main focus of hers is providing details on inclusion and accessibility. These details score her “thumbs up” reactions from readers, driving up her point score.
Her most popular photo, an unassuming snap of the Sydney CBD Westfield Pitt street entrance, showing people how to get to Myer, has over 20 million views.
Christie said a large part of the appeal was the Google reviewer community.
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“There are over 150 million local guides around the world, and a lot of us connect via the Google site and share things like their achievements, local stories and how to do things,” she said.
She was flown to San Francisco by Google twice in 2018 and 2019 to visit the headquarters across a four-day trip.
“We got to meet the programmers and engineers and discuss what could be done better. It was awesome,” she said.
She’s also frequented the Google headquarters in Pyrmont, which has a rating of four stars, though most low ratings are people complaining about the search engine, not the office, giving talks on how to take photos and helping moderate other’s reviews.
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