WhatsYourPlace How To Blow A Good Idea

Munich based WhatsYourPlace has launched one of the more interesting variations on the Million Dollar Homepage this weekend.

The site lets you buy virtual real estate on a Google Map and paints some community features on top of this. Once you have purchased some land it gets registered in your name, you become an official WYP and you also can add photos, memories or points of interest. Other members can visit your place, leave comments, mark it as one of their favorite places and show their appreciation.

Suggested use cases include marking your territory before someone else does, passing it on as a present, using it for marketing or make it an object of speculation and resell it later.

The site is nicely executed and the idea is not bad, but they are smothering the inherent viral potential and probably completely blowing it with their ridiculous pricing scheme. A random baseball field is sold for 10 euro, Wembley Stadium comes at about 130 euro, if you would like to purchase the land mass of the world this would set you back about 150 billion euro, the maximum area for a parcel you can buy is 50 ha though so you’d need to buy a lot of parcels.

(via)

Company blog: Blog

(This article originally was written for blognation Germany. Since blognation is gone I have reposted it here)