When it comes to media contributions on Maps, we hear a lot about photos and more recently videos. However, another class of media contributed by many Local Guides which this post is all about is 360 spheres. In particular, it aims to showcase the best 360 spheres contributed on Maps by Connect Local Guides and when it comes to the “best”, we mean those having the most views. For convenience, we call these star 360 spheres.
Join in, Share and Learn
If you have contributed 360 spheres on Maps, then you can join in and share and learn. It’s simple to do. Just hit this link and register or if you want some help then add a comment in this post and someone will jump in to help you.
By sharing our contributions and achievements we can learn a lot about how to improve and achieve even better outcomes in terms of the impact that our Maps contributions have on our communities. We have been doing this successfully with photos for the past few years and more recently we started doing this with video. Now we can do the same with 360 Spheres. Together we can!
How to Read the Star 360 Spheres leaderboards (End 2023)
Briefly, this is what you need to know about the leaderboards in this post. For more details see the leaderboard documentation:
The leaderboards in this post present details about the star 360 spheres of participating Local Guides from all over the world. If you have contributed 360 spheres on Maps then you will also have a star, it’s your 360 sphere that has the most views.
As well as an overall leaderboard, in time you will see leaderboards for different Local Guide levels which provide you with direct comparisons of your star 360 spheres’ performance with those of your peers. Finally, there’s a leaderboard ranking the top 100 star spheres by average star views per day which gives an indication on how good your star 360 sphere is. To be included in this leaderboard, you must have updated your star spheres’ views in the period since the date of the last average star 360 spheres per day leaderboard as posted here on Connect last month.
The average star views per day is calculated by dividing the star views by the life of the star 360 sphere expressed in days. The life of the star 360 sphere is equal to the number of days between when you first uploaded your star 360 sphere on Maps and the date that you last updated its star views and thus, will be different for each participating Local Guide. Therefore, for accuracy of the information it is important that you enter the correct dates. When it comes to the date that you last updated the star views, point #2 above is very important.
As well as the star views and the date uploaded onto Maps, each listing on the leaderboards shows the Maps Category, and a description (e.g. Storefront, Building or Park) of the respective Local Guide’s star 360s.
If the Maps Category of a star 360 sphere is shown as a link and if the name of the relevant Place of Interest was provided by the respective Local Guide, then hovering over that link will show you the name of the place and selecting that link will take you to a screenshot with details of that place as stored on the Local Guides, 2023 Star 360 sphere post, a “photo album” if you will, of star 360 spheres.
If the Maps Category of a star 360s is shown on a colored background then that star has been selected as one of the best that meets the formatting requirements as specified in the Local Guides, 2023 Star 360 Spheres album post. Select that star’s category and see why it has been rated as one of the best and read more about that star on the “360s album” post.
Selecting any of the Connect Usernames will take you to that Local Guide’s Connect Profile.
Preceding some of the leaderboards, you may see a number of featured star 360s. If so, these are a selection from those that best meet the requirements as detailed in the Star 360s album post.
Where shown, around leaderboard sequence numbers indicate that this is the first time that the Local Guide has participated on the Top 100 Local Guides leaderboards.
Where shown, ( ) around leaderboard sequence numbers indicate that this Local Guide levelled up/down onto this leaderboard.
An asterisk (*) shown after a Connect Username indicates that that Local Guide is a Connect Moderator.
Double asterisks (**) shown after a Connect Username indicates that that Local Guide is a Googler.
A ? or the words “Not set” in a cell indicates that the respective value cannot be determined or hasn’t been provided by or for the respective Local Guide.
Local Guides included on the leaderboards must check their entries for any errors. If you should find any errors or omissions, please add the details in a comment on this post. Regarding omissions, please note point 13 above.
Hi everyone, fingers crossed with one more to go, the Movers & Shakers leaderboards, finally, after the issues with integrating the new video leaderboards into the mix, it’s looking like we’re back on track with posting the monthly leaderboards, yay!!
@AdamGT I see that many of the top shots came from several years ago. Now that Pixel has eliminated the true 360 (looking up, down, and all around), but still has immersive panoramas (looking all around, not up or down), would these count? Is this a question for the Star Discussion?
@JustJake When you upload the immersive panorama on GM does it show up with a circle-arrow 360 icon on the lower right corner of the thumbnail? Just wondering.
@AdamGT Thanks for your hard work and dedication! I know this month has been a particularly tough time with all of your improvements and additions, and I’m really grateful for your efforts!
BTW- I only noticed this board when searching your contributions on Connect. For some reason I don’t receive any notification when you initially publish the new leaderboards, but I do receive notifications when tagged in a subsequent comment. Not sure if this is happening with anyone else?
I couldn’t agree with you more @Annaelisa . This certainly wasn’t the start of 2024 that I was hoping for. However, even though there will continue to be a lot to do, having gone through all this now I’m confident that from now on things won’t be as painful.
