I’ve recently gotten two emails promoting different skate spot maps on the web. The idea is that you sign up and add spots in your area, and if you are traveling you can find spots on the way. I suppose the idea is useful for the casual skate tourist. Say you’re in a town on business or with family. If you got a break you could use these services to see if there is anything nearby. Of course you’re limited to what are probably the most blown out spots in the area, but it’s better than nothing if your are without a guide and don’t have a lot of time to explore. One service is a very slick one called New Breeders that’s pretty fancy, but has a some interface problems once you dig down. Also, it’s not limited to skate spots. The promo vid show surfing and bmx, so who knows what else is in there. Oh wait, I do. It’s got everything extreme!™. The second is from a web site called SubPublic, and it’s got much less eye candy, but it’s strictly skateboard related. SupPublic doesn’t require a login, but New Breeders does. What do you get for logging in? A lot more spots than SubPublic, even if you filter out the Parkour discipline. New Breeders has listings for hotels and nightlife as well. I’m not sure how they are funding this site, but they have “partnerships,” API’s and what not, so they must be trying to make money at some point. On the other hand, SubPublic lets you embed the map on your own web site with only the tiniest bit of branding. Of course it’s Google’s technology, so anyone could do it, but these guys have a head start. Check out SubPublic and New Breeders.
8 comments
Norm
I have that on my site, too. I made it a small link so it didn’t draw too much attention, but if you search for a spot using google maps, say… Ed Austin Skate Park in Jacksonville FL, You’d see my description, a map location and a link to my other spots. Google maps is way easier to use than anything else for that. Check it out, you may be able to put it do use yourself. Each of the park writeups in the guide link to the map.
http://www.busstopmag.com/2005/08/skate-park-guide.html
enemy combatant
“I made it a small link so it didn
Kilwag
I’ll say, I can’t even find the links to the maps.
J.R.
the begining of the nerds showing up at all the best spots has begun..its gonna get bad with this thing
Jeff
Too bad the name skateandannoy.com is already taken.. I tried to contribute my local sites (Tokyo) and the entire user interface is beyond annoying and near non-functional…
.. Good luck with that shit..
Norm
Yeah, I fucked up the link, my bad. I forgot that I made it accessible by invite. But basically what I meant to say was that It’s really useful to use google maps, you can make private maps to spots to send to your friends, or make publicly searchable location. Since google maps always has fucked up or dated listings for skateparks or the locations are sometimes off by a mile, its helpful that you can go in and do it yourself.
I made my spot list for a scavenger hunt contest I’m working on, that’s why I got so into it.
Marcus
Thanks for the mention Kilwag. The goal with Subpublic is to make it easier for skaters to find out about all kinds of stuff: blogs, spots, skaters, events, videos, etc. We don’t do content, but have lots of functions to help people find it.
I’ll be in touch about some cool stuff we’re bringing online – straight outta the arctic circle.
michael
check out http://www.skatemap.de !