Considering it comes as a default app on many phones (including ever increasingly popular Android devices ), today’s milestone for Google Maps for Mobile might not be too surprising, but is still impressive: 100 million monthly users. In a blog post , Vic Gundotra, Google’s Vice President of Engineering, writes of the evolution of the product over the past few years, which has become immensely more valuable with the rise of mobile apps and GPS-enabled smartphones. Gundotra notes other recent additions like Places Pages , Google Latitude and navigation features . As we’ve noted, Maps is an increasingly important part of Google’s strategy for attracting local businesses and competing with the likes of Yelp . To that end, Gundotra writes that, “with this latest Android version, we’re happy to see that you’re now searching for places almost three times as often, doubling how many Place Pages are seen a day,” indicating the company is having some success in its efforts. Read more...