“Look into my eyes and tell me where your spots are…” Photo: Sami Tuoriniemi

Eero Ettala and Fredu Sirvio buddied up with a bunch of clever coding and design-types to create Spot Digger – a location based app that allows users to find, rate and check out the hammers from shred spots across the globe. With the iOS version set to drop today, we hit up Eero to get the lowdown…

First up, we were wondering why such a location-based app popped into your head as something you’d want to devote your time to?

Well, I’ve been on a spot hunt for a long time and just been storing random spot photos on my laptop… but one beautiful day my hard drive broke and all the images were gone. Figured it was gonna be nice to be able to store to spots on the cyberspace and most importantly on your own cellphone! And of course I am curious on what kind of spots others will add and happy to stoke others out showing my spots.

How much involvement did you and Fredu have in developing the app?

From the beginning to this day we have been working on it on daily basis, so there is nothing on it that me and Fredu didn’t approve. We tried to make it as user friendly as possible and still have the core feel to it, since it comes from the riders!

Are you not concerned that you’ll rock up to your favourite spot and there will be 5 crews there already? Or do you have a clause in the app that says ‘If Eero, Fredu, or any of the Spot Digger team show up then everyone else has to scram or at least go buy us a beer and a kebab’?

Haha, we were never really concerned about that. If someone wants to keep his spots secret, he shouldn’t add em on the app. But once the movies are out and kids see the footage, they will find out anyways where the spot is – with or without our app. I don’t think this is gonna change anything, maybe just speed up the process a bit. And I feel like it’s rad for the pros to share their spots, that kids can also ride the best urban spots out there!

What do you foresee will stoke kids out most about Spot Digger, and also what do you think will stoke YOU out most about it?

I feel like kids will be stoked on the feed feature: they can check where their friends are snowboarding or skateboarding and add new photos to spots and so on! And of course the fact that if someone travels into a new city, he won’t need to spend any time scoping the spots cause they’re already on his phone! I’ll be most stoked when kids add spots, too, so I can actually be snowboarding and skateboarding rad new spots in the future!

Finally, the app’s been out on Android a while and you’re just releasing the iOS version. Any new things added since the first app came out, or any new features planned for the iOS one?

We will have some share functions for Facebook etc, but we have a lot of other things in mind too once we get the ball rolling. There is no end to this, hehe.

Big names in skateboarding and snowboarding have come together to build the world’s largest community of skateboarders and snowboarders by launching Spot Digger – The App for finding the best Skate- and Snowboarding spots around the world. Spot Digger has been originally founded by Eero Ettala and Fredu Sirviö and has an impressive global team of professional riders behind it. The development of the Spot Digger app has been financed by Samsung Finland.

Spot Digger is a location based social mobile application and internet service that lets users search, find, share and rate the best skate and snow spots, and lets them add their favorite ones to the map and list favorite locations. The users will create the content by adding their own spots. The application lets users see all the spots on the map and in a list view. They can also search for specific locations filtered by distance, name, rating and type. They can check in to spots, add photos and information about their own locations and rate other’s spots and pictures. In the news feed, users can see in real time what others are up to;

“I check the Spot Digger news feed all the time to check where my friends shred.” Says Halldor Helgason, Spot Digger team rider.

Spot Digger has an impressive global team of professional riders behind it; the snowboard team includes global super stars: Eero Ettala, Mark McMorris, Aaron Biittner, Fredu Sirvio, Halldor Helgason Eiki Helgason and Heikki Sorsa. The skateboard team includes professional skateboarders: Madars Apse, Jaakko Ojanen, Simo Makela, Jesse Turunen and Pirkka Pollari and more joining soon.

The team members will be an active part of the Spot Digger community. They will create content such as blog posts on spotdigger.com, videos and pictures for Spot Digger, list their own favorite spots while travelling the world taking part in the biggest contests and filming for the most popular skateboard and snowboard movies.

“I used to have hundreds of spots in my head and finally there is a way to store them all on my phone. I feel like I have tons of free brain capacity again.” Says Eero Ettala, one of the founders.

With Spot Digger you have all the spots in the world in your pocket plus you can easily see what your friends and professional riders are up to. Spot Digger offers an easy way to follow your friends, the pros and your favorite brands. Samsung Finland is Spot Digger’s main launch partner and actively participates in related events. “Samsung is passionate about sports and we think that snow- and skateboarding are really exciting pursuits. We have been involved in organizing sports-related events in the past and have developed products, such as the Galaxy Xcover, that offers durability and are perfect for snow- and skateboarders. We’re excited to be a part of the Spot Digger launch as it is a cool, new innovation that helps snowboarders and skateboarders find the best spots to do their thing”, says Samsung Finland’s marketing manager Eva Carrero.

The application was launched worldwide for Android during Board Expo trade fair 2nd -4th November 2012 in Helsinki. The iOS version of the application will be launched worldwide in the beginning of January 2013.