The map API wars
03 November 2005 @ early morning | Comments (3)
The freshly-released Yahoo! Maps has again stirred up the maps API war. The expansion of their Maps API for both Flash and AJAX is nothing less than inspiring. Additionally, they now provide “building block” APIs to facilitate geocoding, traffic information, map images, and local search.
Yahoo! Maps still is extremely limited when it comes to global search and “satellite” or “hybrid” view (none these features yet exist), but the developer’s API is the most important aspect of the mapping product. With Yahoo’s good track record for regular updates and improvements to their products, I fully expect this to be added within the near future.
It’s a small world
There is a huge opportunity here: global search is still the most-neglected feature of all major map search engines. Whichever of the three big players first adopts global geocoding and map detail will put themselves at a huge advantage by opening themselves up (finally) to the global marketplace.
MSN
How will the other players fare? Well, MSN Virtual Earth is clearly losing the maps race. In my opinion, that product is absolutely horrible; I have yet to take a second look at it since its inception. I sincerely doubt that a lumbering giant such as MSN can keep up with Yahoo or Google, both of which are at the top of their game.
Up to now I’ve been a strong supporter of the Google Maps API. I have utilized Google Maps API for numerous projects, including the hurricane tracker. I still favor their mapping API over Yahoo’s, but if Yahoo keeps up this pace with their API and expands their map range, it will become difficult for Google to keep up.
I think it’s possible that fighting application wars on many fronts could begin to erode Google’s ability to release quality new products and could also affect the turnaround on improvements. However, Google has massive resources and stunning creativity (Google Earth) so anything is possible. But Yahoo’s release of a Flash/Actionscript API is huge and, for the first time (ever?), Google is playing catch-up.
The verdict
I plan on putting some serious time into learning Yahoo’s mapping API. The Flash/Ajax API expansion puts it way out front on a development perspective and if they can improve their coverage, I will be sold (by coverage I mean regional and local detail at a global scale). But its U.S-only limitation is one that will prevent many applications from being devloped and is the #1 reason why I’ve not yet used the API.
Yahoo is quickly closing the API gap, but for the moment my money is still on Google. If three months from now Google hasn’t answered with their own major API expansion of equal or superior utility, I will likely be onboard with Yahoo. One thing is certain, Yahoo’s API expansion opens up a lot of freedom for integration and innovation. For now, it definitely looks like the killer app for online maps.
3 comments