It's a typical scenario: You know the name of the place you want to go, but not the address. So, you search for the business online, spend a few minutes tracking down the address, then copy and paste the information into a mapping program to get your driving directions. While effective, it's kind of a hassle.

With a new feature in Google maps, you can enter your starting point, then simply enter the business name, or even category of what you're looking for and get detailed maps of results. For example, enter your address and then in the "End address" field, enter pizza. You'll get a map and listing of indexed pizza joints near your starting address. Click on the desired result and you'll get your directions. Pretty neat, and a great time-saver.

A few early tests show very positive results. In some random categories I found very relevant businesses, most of the time results were very close to my starting address. Also, I was pleasantly surprised to find some pretty obscure business listed accurately in my results when searching for their specific names.