Mike Blumenthal pointed out to me this morning that Google has finally introduced “refine by rating” (as well as distance) in the text view of its Maps results:
This is only about 3 years overdue, but better late . . . The distance refinement won’t mean much until it becomes a neighborhood filter.
In mobile Ask is the only WAP site/engine that allows refinement or sorting of results by rating.
Screenwerk 
February 20, 2008 at 4:44 pm
Actually, they still don’t let you change sort order. they are still relying on their algorithmic relevancy sort. These refinements are filters.
February 20, 2008 at 6:13 pm
There is a neighborhood filter for example on the Restaurants NY NY. You can see a screen shot here.
Mike
February 20, 2008 at 8:59 pm
Somebody forwarded me a very funny video about Google Maps so I thought I would share it with the rest of the industry:
March 3, 2008 at 3:18 pm
[…] Ratings and reviews should be factored into the ranking of results, in my opinion, in the Shortcut or OneBox/Universal Search result. However, Google is now showing 10 links to signal users that there’s more content on Google Maps. And you can now sort by rating. […]