Sunday, March 24, 2013

The Google Maps of the Week


Findery is a new application that allows anyone to leave notes on a Google Map. The notes can be about anything, from information about a favorite location to a reminder to pick up milk from the local grocery. The posted notes can be shared with the world, with a group of friends, one to one, or only with yourself.

Pinning a note to the map is very easy. You can click on the the "Leave a Note" link at the top of the map or select the "Leave a Note Here" button. Notes can include text, photos, videos or even a sound clip. When you have submitted a note to the map your note gets a unique URL so it is easy to share your pinned notes with friends or through social media.


Google Maps Street View has proved very popular in a number of online promotional campaigns in the last few years. #FindtheEggs is a good example of how a promotional campaign can be made more interactive and fun with a little help from Street View.

The UK's largest supermarket chain Tesco has used Google Maps Street View to create a virtual find the Easter egg competition. In #FindTheEggs players have to navigate around Street View and collect three of the thousands of eggs that have been hidden on the map. Find one and you win a free chocolate!


Vasile Cotovanu has been inspired by the new draggable polygons option in the Google Maps API to create this template for a Google Maps Geography Puzzle. The template allows anyone to create a game in which players have to drag geographical areas onto their correct position on a Google Map.

The code for the Vasile Geopuzzle is available on GitHub and can be easily customised for any area in the world. To create your own puzzle with the code all you really need is the GeoJSON data for the polygons you wish to use.

No comments: