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Google Releases API for Google Maps

Posted by timothy on from the google-google-google-google dept.

Elyscape writes "The Google Blog announced today the release of an API for Google Maps. While the use of the API requires a key that limits the owner to 50K pageviews a day, which is similar to but far more generous than Google's Web Search API, Google notes that they are willing to work something out with website owners who expect to breach that large barrier. This release definitely opens the door for (or, at least, eases the creation of) more advanced Google-Maps-based applications. On the negative side, it broke several current Google-Maps-based sites, such as ChicagoCrime.org. So get started! Go to the Google Maps API home, sign up for a key, and go wild! (Note: going wild may entail fixing broken sites. It does not necessarily entail actually visiting the wild.)

3 of 30 comments (clear)

  1. Re:50K Pageviews by Dorktrix · · Score: 5, Informative

    A "page view" is the number of times users download the JavaScript, not the number of map tiles, so it is a fairly high limit for most sites. Also, we are not restricting use of the API to small sites -- we are just asking that sites who have more page views than 50K contact us first to ask permission so we can make sure we can handle the load.

    Bret Taylor
    Product Manager, Google Maps

  2. Re:address lookup? by Mz6 · · Score: 4, Informative

    There are ways to do and have Google do the work for you. Try this: http://maps.google.com/maps?q=White%20House%20Wash ington%20DC&output=js This will generate a blank page, but viewing the source will reveal the XML code, including the Lat/long locations that Google found for the search term. Replace "White House Washington DC" with your street addresses and you should get the points you're looking for. From there it's trivial to parse through the XML and grab the lat/long locations.

    --
    Hmmm.
  3. What about raw tile access? by inio · · Score: 2, Informative

    TerraServer USA has allowed direct access to tiles for a while now. While this release is nice, it doesn't explicitly allow programatic tile access from other environments (e.g. Flash) which could allow for new types of navigation, interaction, and cross-platform consistency.

    (full disclosure note: I wrote this about a year ago, so I've got a an interest in direct tile access.)