Mapathon 2014 was a contest held by Google, back in March and April, to help improve Google Maps in Australia, making use of the Google Map Maker website, the contest was also to encourage people to use Google Map Maker to help improve maps in their cities. I was very happy to participate in this contest, I love Google and I use Google Maps every time I need to navigate somewhere new or just get but and train times.

The prizes for the contest were: Top 5 get a Nexus 7 and a $500 Red Balloon Gift Voucher, next 10 receive a Nexus 7, and all top 300 including the top 15 win a T-Shirt and Certificate.

So the contest started and I fired up my mapping engine, it was literally a race to win, I remember continuously monitoring one users profile because his number of edits kept catching up to me so I had to keep finding things to edit in Google Maps, an that I did, over the 30 days the contest ran for I racked up 1878 Edits.

So Google took their time in announcing the winners, it was pretty close between me and the guy I was monitoring, but there was no way I could tell just by the number of edits, because the winner is determined by the highest number of points and 3 points were awarded for places and business listings while 1 point was awarded for trails and roads.

So after all the waiting, one morning I got an email about Mapathon 2014, I got pretty excited, I read it and it said that I was a winner and have won a Nexus 7, $500 Red Balloon Gift card, T-Shirt and certificate, I was so excited and happy, I won!!! I checked the website and I came 5th Place! I beat the guy I was monitoring and probably came 1st place in South Australia.

Later that day my prize arrived, Google Express posted it, I was so excited, I signed for it, went to my room and was literally jumping up and down xD I have never won anything before and this was such a awesome contest to win, especially since it's a Google contest and I'm a Google fanboy ahah. It's really cool seeing my edits in Google Maps and often out in the real world I will see something I added to Google Maps and might even mention it to whoever I'm with, it's just so cool.

So here I present you with a photo of the winnings.