''PlaceSpotting'' was an online game, based on

Google Maps Google Maps is a web mapping platform and consumer application offered by Google. It offers satellite imagery, aerial photography, street maps, 360° interactive panorama, interactive panoramic views of streets (Google Street View, Street View ...

, developed by Swiss programmer Martin Fussen. Its server is based in

Switzerland Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located in west-central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland ...

and has English- and German-language versions. In international Media, ''PlaceSpotting'' is recommended as a "challenging amusement" and an "educational way of wasting time on the internet".

Overview

The way ''PlaceSpotting'' works is simple: *To create a new quiz, move and zoom the map until it shows an interesting place. Provide some hints for the person who will try to solve it and a message one will see if the riddle is solved. After saving the quiz you can send it by mail to a friend or embed it in your homepage as a picture. *If someone wants to solve the quiz their task is to find the place shown in your picture on a second google map. The site additionally has a blog to share questions or hints, a search function, and the possibility to rate quizzes. *Players are scoring an approximate 11% success rate. *In the first 30 months after going live approximately 3.3 Million quizzes were opened and 20,000 created. *''PlaceSpotting'' is free and can be played without registration. A registration is possible and allows to use special functions like "my quizeees" or "quizzes I solved" *There are some

Google Adwords Google Ads, formerly known as Google Adwords, is an online advertising platform developed by Google, where advertisers bid to display brief advertisements, service offerings, product listings, and videos to web users. It can place ads in the res ...

on the page.

Development

''PlaceSpotting'' was developed for people who used email communication to send their friends screen shots of interesting places and wanted them to guess what place was shown in the picture.

Different platforms

Beside the web page ''PlaceSpotting'' can be played as a

Facebook Facebook is a social media and social networking service owned by the American technology conglomerate Meta Platforms, Meta. Created in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with four other Harvard College students and roommates, Eduardo Saverin, Andre ...

Application or as an

iPhone The iPhone is a line of smartphones developed and marketed by Apple that run iOS, the company's own mobile operating system. The first-generation iPhone was announced by then–Apple CEO and co-founder Steve Jobs on January 9, 2007, at ...

App The

Application was released 4 October 2009. A free version is planned. The application received the award App of the week in December 2009 in

Community

''PlaceSpotting'' is present on

and

StudiVZ StudiVZ, SchülerVZ and MeinVZ was a social networking platform for students (in particular for college and university students in Europe) that was based in Berlin, Germany. The name is an abbreviation of the German expression ''Studentenverzeich ...

and on

YouTube YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...

is a short Video about how to play ''PlaceSpotting''.

External links

placeSpotting.com

Media coverage

Story in German magazine, Heise onlineA story in the Swiss online magazine ''20minuten.ch'' An article in the Swedish online newspaper ''Metropol''An article on the page of ''Deutschlandradio''

References

{{reflist 2009 video games Browser games Geography educational video games Google Maps Online games Video games developed in Switzerland