October 14th
A few changes have been made for that to address the differences between Google Maps and Virtual Earth.

You will notice the Virtual Earth version is considerably faster, but it has lower resolution images for most non-US locations.

Also, the BeenMapped bookmarks could not be used for the new version for two reasons: first, the lack of high-res images does not allow some locations to be seen. And second, the great "accidental" shots such as the "giant airplane" are obviously not there. You can always re-add the others going to their latitude/longitude coordinates, which do transfer almost perfectly - for shopping - click.

Usernames have been copied to the new version, but new usernames will not be shared unless they are created on both.
September 27th
We're somewhat back into action. I'm still working on a lot of things that had to be modified and it may be a while before everything starts working properly again.

Thanks to those who've been concerned about BeenMapped while it was offline.
August 16th
Some comments have been surfacing on some Google Maps blogs on the net about BeenMapped and Tagzania. Those were not written by me nor I endorse or approve such comments.

Tagzania and BeenMapped are quite different as Tagzania authors also agree. If you enjoy BeenMapped or Tagzania, we're happy you do, but there's no need or reason to make accusations of plagiarism. Thank you.
July 24th
Just a quick update on what's been going on with BeenMapped.com. We had a nasty bug which came from Google Maps itself earlier this week that prevented people from clicking on the information windows on the map. That's been fixed.

Also, I've been quite busy leaving my current job and preparing for a two-week trip out of the country. I'll be back on Aug 8th so not much will be done until then. I do hope you find more cool locations to add while I'm away, though.

Have fun and stay safe.
July 16th
You can now delete your own locations, if you make a mistake. I'll try to add the edit feature sometime this weekend, along with a couple other improvements.
July 14th - part 2
Couple more bugs fixed. I think now I'll be able to concentrate on adding some more features. Thanks for all who've been helping me track down all the problems and sending in suggestions for the site!
July 14th
I made some changes to the site and the problems on IE6 should be fewer, if not gone. You may have noticed the "see in Google Earth" link on the bookmarks now. That is very very basic right now, but I plan on expanding the integration to Google Earth. There are tons of cool stuff that can be done with KML/KMZ files. The dates on the RSS feed has been fixed as well.

There are a couple of other problems I'm looking into right now, and one of them is that some of the scores are not being calculated correctly. All those should be solved in the next few days, so if you're having trouble, check back soon and sorry for the inconvenience.
July 13th
Some users have been reporting problems with some versions of Internet Explorer 6. If you are using Internet Explorer and the locations lists on the right get stuck on "Loading..." right from the start and never seem to load anything, please tell me the exact version number of your browser, which can be found under Help/About Internet Explorer on the top menu. That'll help track down the problem. Thank you.

I've added some rules for ratings to keep people from overrating posts. You are no longer able to rate your own spots, although you can comment on them. Also, you can only rate each location once. But you can still comment as many times as you wish.

I know some of you feel tempted to mark your own house. Keep in mind, though, that not only it's possibly very uninteresing for all other visitors, but it's also exposing your privacy to whoever visits BeenMapped.com.
July 11th
Wow, we had a really busy day today. Yesterday, BeenMapped.com went "wild" on the net for the first time, thanks to Mike from the amazing Google Maps Mania and we got close to 300 new users on a single day. Not bad, I guess. ;)

For the newcomers, my most grateful welcome. I hope you enjoy the site. If you find any problems, please feel free to contact me. I also gladly accept suggestions and general comments.

Please help me out sort out a few bogus locations and really uninteresting places by using the rating feature. Use it to praise cool finds, but use it as a tool to identify vandalism as well. The more everyone uses it, the better our location selection gets.

The site as a whole is still being worked on, and it'll hopefully get better and better as we go forward. I hope you have fun checking other people's finds. There are already tons of them!

Best regards,
Rafael Matsunaga


About this website
What is BeenMapped.com?

Welcome to BeenMapped.com! This is a website for Google Maps enthusiasts and all sorts of curious people around the world.

Have you ever found something odd on the background of your holiday pictures? Imagine what can be found on pictures of the entire planet!

Ever since Google Maps went online with satellite pictures, all sorts of oddities are found every day. Secret installations, UFO candidates, and weird picture defects. But those were either soon forgotten or too scattered among website forums. Now those can all be found in one place: right here.

Anyone can participate by sending links and rating the links others have sent. All with the aid of Google Maps itself.

Feel free to browse our current submissions and when you find something cool on the planet, don't forget to let us know! Just create a new user for yourself and mark away!

What's the story behind BeenMapped.com?

BeenMapped.com is the personal project of Rafael Matsunaga (that's me), full-time programmer and enthusiast of all things Google.

This website is the result of my personal interest in the potential of colletive information gathering and the challenge of creating an easily usable interface on a web page.

The release of the Google Maps API made me realize the possibility of creating a system where people could find interesting places and share their finds in a single place.

Hopefully more people like you will get to know this website and we shall be able to gather tons of cool places to share with everyone. I hope you have fun using this website.

Feel free to contact me to make suggestions, ask questions or just to chat about how weird the Nevada desert is.

Help!
Browser issues

BeenMapped.com uses a lot of advanced browser features, some of which are not found in all of the current browsers. It has been successfully tested on Firefox 1.0.4 and Internet Explorer 6. Current Mozilla and compatibles should also work fine. Cookies are also required for adding and rating locations.

Safari (as of 1.3) has poor support for XSLT and thus cannot display some parts of the web page.

Opera (as of 8.0.1) either crashes or displays the same problems as Safari. More tests are needed to identify the source of problems on this browser.

Browser compatibility will be addressed as time allows. Note, however, that lack of features like Safari's, will probably not be solved unless a new version of the site is made specifically to address those issues and that may take a long time. For now, please consider using Firefox.

How to use this website

Using BeenMapped.com is very simple. The map itself works just like Google Maps. You can navigate using the arrows and the zoom slider. You can also switch between Map mode and Satellite (default) mode using the buttons on the top right corner.

There are two extra buttons on the map: "area marks" and "clear". "Area marks" shows you the top ten rated locations in the map area you are currently looking at. This also happens automatically when you change the zoom level on the map. "Clear" removes all map marks so that they don't obscure the map itself.

To fully enjoy BeenMapped.com, we invite you to register at our website. It's free and no personal info is required. Just click on "Create new user" on the right column and fill the form. Your email address is not required, but if you ever forget your password, a new one will be issued to that address.

If you've already created a username, log in using the Login area. Once logged in, you'll have access to the "Mark location" box and the rating forms for each location.

To mark a location, just navigate to the place you want to mark and enter a brief title and a short description of the location. If you know when the picture was taken (wow), fill the optional date as well. Click "ok" and your location will be added.

To rate a location, just choose a rating you want to give to the location and add some comments of your own, if you wish.

If you want to remember a particular location, you can bookmark it on your browser using the "link to this location" link on each location's information window. You can also copy the link location and send it to your friends.