After a short break we are resuming our Map of the Week feature, only this time around the focus is on Geogames. Over the past few weeks we have seen a bunch of cool GeoDart games created on our system. You can browse the full list, but here are some interesting ones.

Seven Wonders of the Ancient World by hectorir

US State Capitals by jeffj1111

European [soccer or football] Cup Winners by londonbackpacker

If you haven’t created your Geogame yet, you can start right here!

Adding images to maps just got better and much easier! Today we are excited to announce the release of a new Image Library tool that allows you to upload an image and simply drag and drop it over the map. Now you can create maps like this in minutes:

Leaders and Revolutionaries

Currently there is no limit to the number of images that can be uploaded or added to the map. Once an image is added, it behaves just like any other object in UMapper. You can delete it, change the icon, info bubble content or any other parameter available to standard markers. In addition, image overlays work in all of our current templates, so you can add images to your existing maps without any extra work.

For all of you map wizards who care about technical details, image overlays are added to the standard KML schema and will show up in all KML parsers and map viewers (ie. Google Maps, Google Earth, Live Maps etc).

What do you think? Post comments here or ping us on Twitter.

Our GeoDart game received a very warm welcome and got quite a bit of exposure over the past few weeks. Here is the list of awesome bloggers and online publications who helped to spread the word. Thanks!

• TechCrunch: Can You Find Missouri On A Map? Create Your Own GeoDart Game UMapper
• Virtual Earth, An Evangelist’s Blog: Shall We Play A Game? UMapper’s Virtual Earth Game
• All Points Blog: Turn Your Locations into a Map-based Interactive Game
• Google Maps Mania: Create Your Own Game With Google Maps
• The Wall Street Journal Blog: Venture Capital Dispatch
• GIScussions: Map Games
• We Love Crowds: Create Your Own GeoDart Map Game With UMapper
• North Avenue Bulletin: Georgia Tech + Geography
• TechPlug: Create GeoDart Map Games With UMapper
• iTechNewsDaily: UMapper Makes Games Out Of Online Maps
• Pulse2: UMapper Makes Games Out Of Online Maps
• El Otro Blog: Make Your own Maps for SharePoint FREE!
• Caterpillar Cowboy: How Well Do You Know the US States?

In addition, here are some non-English blogs that, we assume, wrote about GeoDart.

Say hello to GeoDart, the first geogame powered by UMapper! GeoDart is a geography trivia game that invites users to answer geographical questions by placing answers (locations) on the map. Taking advantage of the UMapper platform you can build your own GeoDart game for any locale, with any questions and on any map! Check it out:

Some other games:
USA States Trivia
European Countries
Downtown Seattle Trivia

GeoDart rides on top of the UMapper framework for map creation and distribution. All GeoDart games can be embedded as flash widgets and tracked using the UMapper analytics engine. You can even convert your existing maps into games!

The process of creating your own game is just like creating a standard map and consists of four simple steps. Watch this video to see how to create your own game in minutes.

Get this video

GeoDart Game creation steps

1. Create a new map and give it a title and a description, then select the GeoDart Game template as the primary map usage mode. The title of your map should be the game title; instructions on how to play the game can be included in the description field.
2. In the editor, select marker tool and ad locations. You can also add geometrical shapes such as polygons and circles.
3. Open marker info window property and add title. The title will be used as the name of your marker, the description as the trivia question.
4. That is it! Save and preview your game.

This is one of our most exciting releases, please help us spread the word. As always, we are eager to hear your feedback.

UMapper Flu maps have been generating quite a bit of press coverage lately. We’ve compiled a list of resources that wrote about UMapper just in the past week. Thanks to everyone for spreading the word!

• SearchEngineLand.com: Tracking The Swine Flu Epidemic With Maps & Search
• AnyGeo - A GISuser Blog: Interesting H1N1 Swine Flu Influenza heat map
• Softpedia.com: Virtual Earth Swine Flu Map
• Virtual Earth, An Evangelist’s Blog: Visualizing Swine Flu on Virtual Earth
• The Map Scroll: More Swine Flu Maps
• LiveSide.net: Visualizing Swine Flu On Virtual Earth
• Virtual Earth for Public Sector: Mapping the H1N1 “Swine Flu” Virus with Microsoft Virtual Earth
• Geo2Web.com: Mapping the Outbreak of Swine Flue and Latest News?
• GpsObssesed.com: Swine Flu heat map using Microsoft Virtual Earth

If your website didn’t make it onto this list, please send us a link and we will gladly add it.