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Spamming Google Maps

An anonymous reader writes "Google organized a flyover of Sydney, Australia last Friday for Australia Day. The images taken on the day will be posted to Google Maps in a few weeks. A number of dotcoms spent hours making huge signs that would be visible from the air. It will be interesting to see whether Google will repeat the event in other cities. If they do, get prepared early. What sign would you make?"

11 of 225 comments (clear)

  1. Naughty naughty by rawket.scientist · · Score: 5, Funny

    An arrow pointing to my asshole neighbor's house with the caption "Unsecured wireless network here!!"

    --
    John Hancock wuz here.
  2. Re:None by morgan_greywolf · · Score: 5, Interesting

    None, because it ruins the entire point of maps if you turn them into nothing but billboards.
    Does it, though? I could see, for instance, fast food chains getting in on the action. Imagine, if you will, if all of the KFCs got together and on the roof of each of the KFC restauraunts is a huge image of Colonel Sanders at the time Google is doing the fly-by photos. You'd know right where get your Original Recipe(tm) Bucket of Chicken without even searching!
  3. "Here's your sign" by wowbagger · · Score: 5, Funny

    There's only one thing to put on such a sign:

    "Mostly Harmless"

  4. Bullseye by krygny · · Score: 5, Funny

    If you look at the roof of the Target store in College Point, NY, there's a huge logo. Not such a good idea.

    --
    Research shows that 67% of those who use the term "research shows", are just making shit up.
    1. Re:Bullseye by ortholattice · · Score: 5, Informative

      If you look at the roof of the Target store in College Point, NY, there's a huge logo. Not such a good idea.
      For those too lazy to look it up: Target store in College Point, NY
    2. Re:Bullseye by maxwells_deamon · · Score: 5, Funny

      So if I am flying over this is a hot air balloon, do I have permission to drop things on that roof?

    3. Re:Bullseye by jlindy · · Score: 5, Funny

      Gives a whole new meaning to "Google bomb"

  5. Re:None by Score+Whore · · Score: 5, Interesting

    None, because it ruins the entire point of maps if you turn them into nothing but billboards.
    Ummm. This is Google we're talking about. The guys who do everything they can to convince people to place ads on every page on the internet? (As an fyi, Google's ads frequently make up 20-30% of the data transfered when you load up a page with their ads.)

    Have you ever put something like "Mt. Rainier" into Google maps? Does it seem fucking stupid that Mt. Rainier is not one of the returned results? Maybe Google has already "ruined the entire point of maps."
  6. Many of you are missing the point by Syde · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Its kind of hard to be calling it spamming when Google actually asked people to do this... If you think its stupid, then call google stupid, not the people that participated. http://www.google.com/intl/en_au/events/australiad ay2007/index.html

  7. Shocked at the negative comments by gary+gunrack · · Score: 5, Insightful

    People (slashdotters?) left some really vitriolic comments on their blog. It would be a completely different situation of soulless corporations were making the ad. But this is just a geeky couple doing something creative that took alot of their time and energy, and was obviously done out of love, not greed.

  8. Re:None by harlows_monkeys · · Score: 5, Funny

    Uhm...if Google maps gets you to the right intersection, and then you can't take over from there and figure out which of the four corners has the Taco Bell, you shouldn't be going out for food on your own in the first place.