Saturday, April 22, 2006

Bloglines - Yahoo! Maps, Your Way

Bloglines user PeterDawson (slash.pd@gmail.com) has sent this item to you, with the following personal message:

they also are now are no going full stream ahead into the maposphere -- API and all !!

Thats nice google needs healthy competetion !! :)_


Yahoo! Search blog
A look inside the world of search from the people of Yahoo!

Yahoo! Maps, Your Way

It's hard to believe it's only been a week since we released global and satellite data on Yahoo! Maps. Thanks very much to all of you who are trying out the new beta version. We're definitely listening and taking notes for the future, so please continue to send in or blog your feedback - good, bad and otherwise.

Folks have also noticed our Yahoo! Maps APIs. These are available for you to publish maps on your website, blog or homepage, free of charge. You can have dynamic and interactive Yahoo! Maps running in no time. All of our syndicated APIs offer the following features:

  • Fast loading global maps that are draggable, pannable, zoomable and customizable
  • 3 map views, Regular, Satellite and a Hybrid mode that blends the two
  • Built-in premium geo-coding, enter an address and go
  • Customizable overlays, interactive map markers (pushpins) and information windows
  • Easy to follow guides and a community dedicated to getting you up and running

Each API also has a bunch of cool features, so prepare to geek out:

Yahoo! Maps AJAX API

  • Support for custom overlays at YGeoPoints that move with the map or YCoordPoint coordinates that hover over the map allows you to easily place your own HTML elements on the map
  • Extension of our Overlay class including transition states for markers on the map, expand open/close, hide, unhide, change image and smart window border color control to name a few
  • Built in "add marker by address" functionality without the need to know your latitude/longitude
  • Create custom dynamic maps with XML data in GeoRSS format, we do all the geocoding for you
  • Upgraded pan & zoom controls and a new map Navigator widget
  • Integrated keyboard shortcuts
  • Extended supported events list, enhanced event handling now supports custom context and multiple callbacks registration, as well as YGeoPoint return for click type events
  • Enabled by default auto resize with % width/height container size definition
  • An advanced built-in logger to help you debug complex Maps implementations
  • Improved memory management that is nearly leak-free in all browsers

Yahoo! Maps Flash APIs

  • Available in 3 flavors: JS, Flash and Flex. Collect them all!
  • Easy drop-in code or components
  • Most methods including changing location, zoom level, map view type, adding widgets (Navigator, Satellite Control) and panning can be done with just a few lines of code
  • Improvements to panning and zooming
  • Simple overlays let you add dynamic data, including Live Traffic and Yahoo! Local Search results

Not sure where to start? Give the Simple API a try and see how easy it is to get started. Jeffrey from Yahoo! Developer Network even built a tool that can help you use Excel to build a map.

Whichever API you choose, please know that you will always get the same up to date and reliable service that powers Yahoo! Maps. Just this week, we made some additional data updates and made the maps easier to read when printed.

May all your map apps continue to flourish!

Mirek Grymuza
Chuck Freedman
Vince Maniago
Yahoo! Maps


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