Google [NASDAQ:GOOG] has issued an app that promises to solve a great problem faced by people in the US and the world over — finding a parking spot! I think I can safely assume that almost all of my readers have gone through parking nightmare more than once in their lifetimes. It is either about finding a spot or getting there before the other guy does. Well, with Google’s aptly named Open Spot App, you can now find a spot and help others do the same.

Here’s how it works — you begin by helping someone else find a spot. You do this by marking a spot when you are driving away from a parking spot. This spot shows up on the map of others using the app. The app will show open spaces within a radius of ~0.9 mile/~1.5km of the users current location.

The first and obvious problem of this app is that it is not automated and depends on the input of human users to determine free parking spots. However, since this is crowd sourced data like the traffic data you get during navigating with Google’s Maps, it can be very useful when more people start to use it. Given that Android’s reach is increasing steadily thanks to multiple manufacturers taking an interest in the handset, these sort crowd-sourced data just might come in handy.

Another possible problem is fake marking. There are always going to pranksters who are going to mark fake parking spots just to get others in to trouble. But Google is saying that they have some kind of safeguard in place for such rogue users and they will dealt with. I am guessing Google will take away their Googling rights for a few days.

[via]