Sports fans, we are only weeks away from the greatest sporting event in the world, the World Cup. No doubt you’re already dreaming about the sick days you’ll be taking from work and the beer you’ll be drinking while watching your country make its way to the finals. England vs. – (insert your country here) for the dream final.

What better way to get ready for the tournament and build excitement around augmented reality than entering the Wikitude World competition.

The competition is simple, just do what you love doing and create Worlds for the Wikitude augmented reality mobile browser, and every World submitted will be entered will into the competition giving you the chance to win a fabulous mobile phone. All Worlds submitted will be showcased on the Wikitude website giving you excellent visibility and users will be invited to vote for their favourites. If users vote for you, you may win yourself one of 10 brand new LG Smartphones in time for summer.

You are welcome to submit Wikitude Worlds on any subject. If you are a football fan here are a few world cup ideas to get your creativity flowing:

• A Wikitude World showing the stadiums where games are taking place. What would make the World fantastic is if information can be included on fixtures or even live scores

• A Wikitude World that shows the location of all the countries that are taking part in the competition. Even better if the countries are removed as they become eliminated.

• Fancy a beer? How about a Wikitude World of pubs/bars that are showing the games live on TV

Of course you are not limited to creating Worlds that only relate to the world cup, to enter the competition you can create and submit any Wikitude World. For example why not submit:

• A Wikitude World of all the trains or metro stations in your city

• A World of all the nearest ATM machines

The choice of what you want to create and share is entirely up to you and it’s easy to get started

Getting started

ARML
You could build your World using Augmented Reality Markup Language (ARML) which is a specification that allows content developers to create content that is displayed on various mobile AR browsers. Wikitude 4 is the first browser that natively supports ARML. ARML is built on a subset of KML, a set of common tags supported across all browsers and some browser (e.g. Wikitude) specific extensions.

Detailed information on the ARML format: www.openarml.org/wikitude4.html

XML Webservices
Wikitude also have webservices available for you to use and consume in your application. You can find out more about the Wikitude webservices architecture here www.wikitude.me/assets/WikitudeWebservice.pdf

If you are not a developer you can add your location data by visiting the Wikitude.me website, so why not share your favourite pub where you’ll be watching the world cup.

The Challenge starts on May 13th 2010 and you can  submit your Worlds until the July 11th 2010 (a great date as the FIFA World Cup Finale is on the July 11th)

For full terms and conditions, rules etc, take a look at the offical site: www.wikitude.org/worldcup

Wikitude API for Developers

Related posts you may like:

1. Wikitude World Browser Update – Quick Look
2. Wikitude 6.0 iPhone Release
3. Visualize Earthquakes with Wikitude
4. Mobilizy Shape The Future Of Augmented Reality
5. Wikitude For The iPhone – First Look