Slashdot Mirror
Google to Unite Mapping Mashups
jihadist writes "Hoping to make it even easier to turn its online maps into collages of local information, Google Inc. is introducing tools that will stitch together applications from a hodgepodge of Web sites."
← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)
Appended to the end of comments you post. 120 chars.
I also think this explains why they've been adamant about everyone who uses Google Maps having to ping their servers--if you're using overlays of data or information, they want it as an option for users of these mashups.
God, I hate these new terms but I suppose I'll be using them on a daily basis in the future like everyone else.
Sure thing: Yahoo users discuss and test anti-troll measures.
Appended to the end of comments you post. 120 chars.
This is why Google is beating Microsuckware, no way would Redmond encourage Windows or Office hacks.
Why are you surprised?
Microsoft and Google are the two biggest tech companies out there, so it's only natural that most of the stories on Slashdot will be about one of them.
And then the rest are the odd Linux and Sci-Fi story thrown in, and a smattering of left-wing politics stories. Oh, and some long rambling commentary from Bennett Haselton about spam or something.
I still wonder why Mapquest is so much popular as compared to Google Maps.
News on Google, reported by Yahoo...
Irony, thy name is Internet.
Everything in the world is controlled by a small, evil group to which, unfortunately, no one you know belongs.
"Microsuckware"?
You silly little child.
Here is the documentation on mapplets.
-molo
Using your sig line to advertise for friends is lame.
So, basically, Google takes the Google Maps mashups and makes a mashup of them, if you want to think of it like that?
Or, perhaps, might one better think of it as potato flakes -- i.e. making it so users can get their mashups pre-mashed.
This is a great idea because it'll take the work that everyone else did and lump it into a site that all google users can access. It'll take what was so good about google maps (the ability to build 'maplets') and make them easily accesible. I'm sure they'll create them in a way that the third parties can still make money off their own applications too.
Sounds like a great idea to me, the only real hurdle I can see remaining is the source data these mashups use which, at least in the UK, are owned by the government but strangely not available for the use of the people.
The UK postcode database is one such example which isn't available except at vast expense but there are others, the most relevant currently being flood data which is gathered, at the taxpayers expense, but not available for use except, again, at a large cost.
Since the government clearly aren't that interested in listening the people who'd like this to change I'd like to see Google exerting a bit of pressure in this arena, they may not benefit directly but indirectly with free data I suspect there would be an explosion of mashups from which they could benefit.
This was announced at the Google Developer Day back in May, and has been pretty much public knowledge since then.
Jolyon
Please read my Canon EOS tech blog at http://www.everyothershot.com
When Redmond start doing hilariously tragic things involving satellite mapping and invasion of privacy, then sure, we'll talk about it. But for now, Google is funnier.
THUD~*
And here I was dreaming of them adding their My Maps interface into their standard api. Looks like they're more interested in adding your site to their service, rather than the other way around.
http://logiciels.zorgloob.com/graphe.php
Now thats a mighty mashup!
Did the word "Mashup" exist before "Web 2.0"?
Really makes you wonder what google will add to their maps next.
I was thinking that they will end up linking live video streams similar to the way they have the 1st person intersection photos. I think this must come in the end..There are so many folks out there who will have the iPhone and as we all know you MUST use it with "all you can eat" data plan. So its not a stretch to assume that this could be a feature built into an iphone or any other phone. Just a thought though..plus it would be cool to see whats going on live anywhere at anytime.
I could use something like this right now. I'm trying to find an apartment in Houston. The trouble is, all of these apartment complexes mostly have the same amenities. For the most part, they all accept cats, they all have a pool, a fitness center, and a balcony/porch. They all have onsite laundry or in-unit washer-dryer. The amenity differentiators so far seem to be the inclusion or exclusion of AC from the rent, and the inclusion of cable or internet. The only other thing separating these places is location.
These apartment complexes are so similar that you would swear one company build and owns all of them (this is probably the case). If you haven't lived in an area with lots of these managed apartment buildings, you probably won't understand. I never saw anything like this in Maine.
Initially I tried to keep track of the apartments I was interested in in a spreadsheet. But location is one of the only important differentiators. I really need a map with filtered metadata.
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
Do they form the shape of a large robot and fight evil?
Did I say overlords? I meant protectors.
Yet you're still here. If those other sites are so much better, why are you still posting on /.?
If I have nothing to hide, you have no reason to search me
MS already doing this with popfly (http://www.popfly.ms/). yawn.
So a lot of the mashup's I have seen usually have some google ads on the mashup site, thus giving the developer a few pennies for their work. Now google wants developers to write the code so it can be displayed on google's own site thus google get the code for free, and they get their adwords money from advertisers, removing the adsense payout part.
Good idea google, kudos.
Pluralitas non est ponenda sine neccesitate
One map to rule them all and in the darkness bind them.
EvilCON - Made Famous by
Well Microsoft has a product called Popfly.com that does mashups with anybody's maps and many other sites and services.
Is Google ripping the idea off of MS?
How about a facility for printing the overlays? At the moment, users cannot put their own markings on convenient, old-fashioned paper: only Google's map underlay can be printed. Add mashup printing, and you would be able to plan a pedestrian or cycling route, print, tape it to your handlebars and away you would go.
I thought it was called Cross Site Scripting (XSS)....
Microsoft was involved in satellite mapping (Terraserver - June 1998) before Google existed (September 1998), and its operating systems have a nasty tendency to "phone home." Google's contextual ads and web-based services warrant a watchful eye, but "Street View"'s blurry panoramas don't bother me a bit.
true story
Right now using Google API I can't integrate routes direction services, but just static maps. I would like to be able to embed mapplets for my own project. But they are available only on Google Maps website.
Also for Google Maps there are Navteq maps, while if use Google API you have Tele Atlas that are less accurate.
http://www.popfly.com/
So commenting about the tags is offtopic now?