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Google Maps To Charge For API Usage
RdeCourtney writes "The BBC is reporting that from 1 January 2012, Google will charge for the Google Maps API service when more than the limit of 25,000 map "hits" are made in a day. Google is rumoured to be charging $4 per 1,000 views in excess of the limit. Google maintains the high limit of 25,000 free hits before charging 'will only affect 0.35% of users.'"
They will be dropped by 0.35 % of their users, at most. It appears to me, they want to charge those who use google maps commercially. And as a private citizen, I am fine with companies charging each other
You can pay for extra space in gmail, too, but we don't hear to many complaints about that (I'm rapidly approaching my limit). They are, admittedly, providing a service for which you would otherwise have to pay. If it's big deal, link your map to the plain Google site. Oh, you don't want to un-brand your map and keep people captured on your site? Excuse my while I shed a tear.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
It does, but mostly to protect server load. Once you hit that, you're advised to grab the whole planet source data and serve it yourself.
Furries make the internet go.
I don't think announcing the prices counts as being rumored.
How is it aimed at Apple, precisely? The Google integration in IOS is an official collaboration with Google, I hardly think Apple is subject to the public limits of usage.
Do you think that the loss of the lucrative market of "people who want to serve more than 25,000 embeds of your mapping data per day, for free" will necessarily strike Google as a bad thing(or any of their competitors as somebody worth attracting)?
Better that I pay for it than it go away entirely.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
What's next? Will I need to do this completely ridiculous thing that's in no way follows logically from the thing they've announced? I can only imagine how this implausible occurrence would affect this other thing I have a pet peeve against!
Wow. Just... wow.
I have developed a truly marvelous proof of this comment, which this signature is too narrow to contain.
If they would let the developers choose to add sponsored results within the map (with a category to pick so as not to compete), maybe they can offset the price.
I wouldn't have a problem if my map showed Taco Bell or Red Box locations.
Of course, I guess the app or website could filter the sponsored results out, but I'm sure Google's smart spiders and human TOS verifiers could detect it and remove the free access. If only 0.35% of their API users are affected, it's not like they've got that much work to confirm proper TOS compliance.
They were basically running a charity by allowing people to download maps to their GPS devices with no ad revenue in return, and all that data can't be cheap to store and deliver.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Dear Google,
We ( http://www.plml.org/ ) use many of your API services for our tools. Recently, we had to switch from the Google Search API to Bing's Search API due to the new fee-for-access system. Bing works, but does not yet deliver the same quality of service that teachers and students expect. We hope they improve, but so far, have seen little action from their API team.
With respect to the Google Search API: While our sites (for instance, http://www.boolify.org/ ) do utilize more than the maximum number of hits per day for the free API access ( with Search, it's just 100! ) we do not have the ability to pay the fees associated with the usage we incur.
Nonetheless, it is our mission to continue to provide free access to the educational tools we develop (there are many others like us), and struggle to continue to provide tools that schools expect to be of high quality, while balancing that ability with what we can provide within existing technological services.
The other grant programs you provide to nonprofits are essential (AdWords, Apps Enterprise, etc). We, and many others, make use of these grants daily, if not every minute, of our operation.
So, as you roll out additional fee-for-access programs, we humbly ask that you extend the grants program to cover these services as well. A little leeway on your part will go a long way toward helping us deliver on our social mission!
Many thanks,
Staff @ Public Learning Media, http://www.plml.org./
They already cover this case:
http://code.google.com/apis/maps/faq.html#usagelimits
I disagree. If you're serious about using maps you will probably go with Bing because they have superior APIs. It's one of the few things Microsoft has gotten (relatively) right.
Check out my lame java blog at www.javachopshop.com
Yeah, Bing is awesome. Did anybody else know that Lima, one of the world's largest cities has approximately 3 streets?
Dear Business,
We just switched from you to your competitor because they offer their service for free. It turns out, though, that their product sucks and we like yours better. Would you consider giving us your superior product for free. You've already granted us free access to some of your other products, and we use an absolute boatload of those, taxing your infrastructure far more than you allow for normal entities. We'd like to do that for all of your other pay services.
Thinking of the children,
Your local non-profit
(Sorry, your letter struck me a bit odd. In full disclosure, I offer professional services and am asked from time to time to provide my services for free. I also happen to sit on three non-profit/charity board of directors, so I'm keenly aware of n-p finances.)
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Lima, Ohio, is on the other side of the planet from Lima, Peru.
Perhaps look at the link you're responding to before responding?
For a site about things like basic rights, Slashdot users sure do like to censor "dissent".