The Worlds Largest Signpost is now down for Good. During the last two weeks hundreds of Good Things all around the world where pointed out. From really close ones like the Tower Bridge (less than a couple of hundred yards away) to some really far away, like that secret hidden beach in Indonesia witch obviously isn’t that secret any more. Check back soon for some more behind the scenes footage.

What is it?

A 50 meter tall motorized signpost with one clear purpose, showing the way to good stuff all around the world. Based on the simplest form of giving someone directions (pointing) it lets you share the places you love, or tells you about the places others love. When the signpost is live it constantly turns and shows the distance and direction to new Good Things. Submit your favorite cafe, an upcoming concert or a rare record store and the signpost will automatically turn in the right direction and the giant LED screen will light up.

How does it work?

The Good Things feature in Ovi Maps provide us with all the Good Things we post on the signpost. There we get the title, description, location and through some mapping magic we find out the direction and distance. When the Good Thing is ready we push it up on the signpost and turn it in the right direction.

Bob and Neil, making sure new Good Things are continuously posted on the signpost

Ian, Head of cameras, capturing the Good Things from their best angle for the live feed on nokia.com/maps nokia.com/maps

During the first day the servers were flooded with people trying to get their Good Things on the signpost. Unfortunately we couldn’t show them all (actually there were so many so we could only show a small portion of them) but keep submitting your favorite restaurants, bike trails, bus stops, chimney pots, anything and we’ll keep that arrow swinging over central London.

You can either submit your Good Thing here.

PS. Don’t forget to follow the signpost on twitter . You can also visit our facebook page here

Everyone keeps saying London is all about rain rain and fog. Couldn’t disagree more, ever since we started we’ve really had the weather on our side. Today we started building the main structure of the signpost itself, and since the shear size of it is 8 meters tall and the length of two double decker busses, we had to lift it step by step while adding rows of Hi-Def LED screens.

We were also figuring out how to transmit video signals with a 120 meter long cable without getting too much interference, given that London largest Airport was not too far away that was easier said than done.

Check back soon.

Everyone gets sleepy from time to time and needs somewhere to sleep, and the same thing goes for our signpost. So in this episode still waiting for the main character in the enter the show, you could say we’re building its bed, a place for it to rest during the night. Only, this bed is twenty meters long and can take the weight of at least ten tons.

More to come

This is the first day, and the construction is about to begin. Today most of our work was making place for all equipment we needed on the site, marking up all the safe zones, unloading bunkhouses, pipes, tractors, helmets, vests, trusses and such.
We don’t want to give it all away right now, but here’s a glimpse of what we’re up to.

Day 1 part 2