Wow... I'm incredibly impressed by the new Yahoo Maps beta. Why do I love it?
- Zooms in on mouse wheel scroll
- Has labeled city districts on transparency overlay
- Can show live traffic
- Uses Yahoo! local data to show bars, restaurants, gas stations with 2 clicks on a menu
- Has a "Send to Phone" function
- Uses the euro-style maps like Google
- Killer API
- Functional use of browser back button (even though it uses Flash)
This is an application that should get a lot of attention, though I fear the web community is already so obsessed with everything Google, they'll barely give it a look. Not me. I was planning on having some Google maps applications built, but now that I see this, I'm going to try Yahoo! instead.
I added google maps to my site the day after it launched, The API is a bit cludgy, and simple tasks like displaying different markers is a headache.
Google maps cannot handle 100+ markers, so you have to ome up with work arounds all the time. I hope they improve.
I would love to use yahoo! the map is well though out, and is easy to use unfortunatly no UK mapping yet.
Nice. I already had use of the traditional Yahoo! Maps through one of the pre-programmed sites on my T-Mobile Sidekick, and already preferred it over such mapping sites like Mapquest, because of simple things such as more detailed driving directions (sure helps when you're lost and on I-5 not knowing where you're going), the ability to send directions and maps to your phone, and ease of use, but then I found Google Maps...which I more adamantly use when I'm on an actual computer as opposed to my phone, purely because viewing Google maps full screen gives a much better effect than trying to deal with a huge map on a tiny Sidekick screen. But that's a whole 'nother topic.
Another piece of evidence that Yahoo's getting up there.
>"Looks to me as though they plan on charging for their API at some point. Thoughts? "
Any charge would most likely will be for really heavy users. They need to leave the door open to charge companies who will be querying 500,000 times per day.
It's unlikely they would ask for anything from the little guys. This clause is more of a safeguard than an insidious path to revenue.
I agree, it is very impressive. I am in the middle of a site redesign for my company and made the decision early on to use Google Maps. After seeing this yesterday I had initially begun rethinking that decision.
When I began to drill into the terms of use for Y! Maps, I found this at https://ws1.inf.scd.yahoo.com/terms/
4. Fees and Payments. Yahoo! reserves the right to charge fees for future use of or access to the Yahoo! APIs or the Yahoo! services and Web sites (collectively, "Yahoo! APIs Services") in Yahoo!'s sole discretion. If Yahoo! decides to charge for the Yahoo! APIs Services, such charges will be disclosed to you prior.
Looks to me as though they plan on charging for their API at some point. Thoughts?