Mapping Deathmatch
September 6th, 2005Doing some map hacking today. However, I’m coming up frustrated at the lack of solutions which have good answers to all of the following.
| Yahoo | Virtual Earth | MapPoint.NET | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Embeddable | Yes | No. Must embed a frame of Yahoo’s web page | Yes | Must write SOAP client |
| Commercial Use | Yes, but you can’t charge to see the map. | Yes | Not yet. | Yes |
| Geocoding | No. Can use geocoder.us | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Routing | No | No | No | Yes |
| Cost | Free | Free | Free | A lot |
VirtualEarth has the coolest Javascript API. Its killer flaw is that it can’t be used commercially yet. Google Maps looks good, but lack of geocoding is sucky. geocoder.us costs money for commercial use, although cheap. I may just write my own geocoder using the Tiger data. I’d like to have Canadian geocoding though too. Yahoo Maps would really rock if I didn’t have to embed their stupid web page in mine. Last, the MapPoint web service rocks, but startup is really expensive. I’d gladly pay $100/mo but I think its roughly $8K/yr minimum with MapPoint.
sigh
September 9th, 2005 at 7:27 am
[...] Following up on my recent post on mapping APIs, it appears Microsoft has straightened out its licensing and you can use Virtual Earth for commercial usage. Chandu writes You can use the Virtual Earth APIs for free as long as you use the What/Where search boxes on your map. This is also makes sense from a revenue stand point since you will have the opportunity to make money by placing advertisements on your site in a revenue sharing model (more details to be announced at a later date) [...]