What it does:
Webtomap lets users post content about any topic they like on a Google map. It’s like putting blog posts on a map. To keep the site convenient to navigate and prevent misuse like spam, some measures are taken. To search for specific subjects, the category structure and search function can be used. Large amounts of posts can be placed on the map because the posts are clustered to keep the map clean. Signing up is easy because you can create an account with Facebook, Twitter and Google. Webtomap is a Mashup that uses among others: Twitter connect, Facebook connect , WordPress and Google maps. The website is still in beta, but new users are welcome to sign up and use the service. The maximum number of posts is three a day to preserve the quality of posts. How users are going to use the service still has to be seen. It may be that users are going to use it as a local discussion forum or as a local news service. It is also possible to create maps with certain tags to start an interactive map around specific topics. Articles videos and photo’s can be placed on the map given they are related to the location where they are posted. Users can suggest third party services like video sites and other widgets to be integrated within Webtomap. If users find spam or other low quality content, they can report it with a mouse click and the post will be reviewed. All maps and articles on the website are easy to share on all major social networks.
How it beats the competition:
There are many Google maps services available on the web, but many of them are not very interactive. Most of them help you to find your way around, Some of them let you post reviews of location based services, but you are not free to post anything you want about any subject or location. Webtomap is a new service that makes maps more interactive and lets users post their photos, videos and articles on a public Google map. Users are able to comment on each other’s posts and give them a rating.
Other location services like Foursquare build their product around a specific niche, but Webtomap tries to be more like a meta geo-location service. It does not help you to find your way on vacation, but shows you what people care about in your home town. Users can post about the subjects they like on the location they like and other users can comment and interact. Since the site has just launched the number of posts is still very small, but when more people start using the service, this experiment might turn into a comprehensive database of geographically tagged content. When usage of the site increases the search function will also become much more useful because the number of tags in use will increase. Go and have a look if your topic of interest is already covered!
Site:
http://webtomap.com
Twitter:
http://twitter.com/WebToMap
Facebook:
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