Beginning Google Maps Applications

Linux world has a roundup of the top 10 most useful, interesting and important Web 2.0 APIs that you can use for “real programming problems” in Web applications. At the top of their list is the Google Maps API, winning the #1 most important and influential API award.

I know many of you already agree with this, but for those of you who are joining us after recently receiving our book as a holiday gift, you’ve joined the right team. We’re here for the long-haul. :)

ZDNet is reporting that Google has updated the terms of use for their API to explicitly mention the geocoding API. ZDNet is wrong in stating that this is a new restriction since it’s been in place since the very first day the geocoding API was released.

The “new” restriction centers around the 50,000 lookups per day limit I discussed on June 21st, 2006 before our book was published 5 months ago.

I write this not to slap ZDNet for reporting dated news, but to instead make sure our more recent readers who have joined since June are aware of this restriction.

Happy Holidays from the three of us to all of you and yours.

Where is the Google Maps API going in the new year? No one but the development team is certain, but I’m willing to take a gamble and look once more into my cloudy crystal ball.
Continue reading ‘The Google Maps API: Predictions for 2007′

Hello Everyone.

We’ve had a request to add forums to this site for all of our readers to help each other and share ideas. Jeff, Mike and I considered this a few months ago and decided that we probably didn’t have enough traffic to warrant it. But with over 100 subscribers to our feed and an average of 200 visitors a day, maybe things have changed.

If you’d like to see a forum installed on this site, please voice your opinion in the comments. If it’s a common request we’ll do our best to add one early in the new year.

Happy Holidays.

It’s been a bit quiet around here lately so I wanted to point out some articles that Jeff has written in the last few weeks. They don’t directly relate to Google Maps development but they are excellent articles about web development in general. I hope you find them useful.

• Doing it Asynchronously: Demonstration and explanation of the A in Ajax.
• The Tabular Data Enigma: An excellent discussion of tables versus CSS.
• Relativity and your Website: Explanation of relative paths versus document roots.
• Play Nice With Others: Javascript Namespace considerations.
• Yet another Javascript Logger: GLog-like logger for non-GMaps applications.

I’ve also been doing some research into Search Engine Optimization and traffic generation. If you’re interested in that you can find my article here: How to Meet New Friends: Traffic Generation Basics.

Enjoy.