Google wants to make it easier to find parking spots and the search giant has released an Open Spot Android app that will help you mark and discover open parking spaces.
I used to have a car here in San Francisco but the frustration of finding a viable parking spot led me to give it up. I’d have tons of hair-pulling experiences where I’d circle a few neighborhoods for upwards of half an hour desperately hoping a spot would open up.
With the Open Spot Android app, that experience could have been avoided. Other Google Open Spot users mark spots that are available and when you launch the app, you’ll see Google Maps with dots indicating where these spots are.
There’s a neat color-coding system which will tell you how much time has passed since the spot has been marked. The cool thing about the Google Open Spot Android app is that the search giant has implemented some mobile gaming aspects. Whenever you share an open space, you get some “Karma points.” These have no value anywhere but at least you can have a tangible number of your kindness to strangers.
The two major problems with this is that it needs a strong base of users for it to be effective and there are also bound to be some jerks who mark non-open spaces. In the Open Spot app FAQ, the search giant addresses both of these issues.
The company is banking on the traditional viral marketing campaign: word of mouth. It wants you to tell friends about Open Spot. If it nabs you a parking spot or two in the real world, I’m sure you’ll have no problem doing that.
As for the jerks, Google calls these people “griefers” and it has “mechanisms” to determine who these people are. Let’s hope so, as too many “griefers” could kill the chances of mainstream success.
The app is available now for Android 2.0 devices and higher, like the Motorola Droid X. Try it out and let us know what you think.
[Via Google, hat tip to TechCrunch]