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Yahoo! Maps Upgrade
Breaking news: Yahoo! has upgraded its mapping service with a new, Flash-based beta version with substantial interface improvements. In the 15 seconds or so I’ve had to play with it, it works very well — the inset for zooming is a nice UI touch.
Here’s Yahoo!’s feature list. Associated Press coverage (via GeoCarta); All Points Blog goes over the features.
The Yahoo! Maps API now includes Flash and AJAX versions. Over on Geobloggers, Rev Dan Catt takes a detailed look at the changes to the API and the Flash API in particular.
Update, 8:48 AM: Cartography: “In short, it looks like Yahoo! Maps is trying to look like Google Maps — perhaps a bit too much.”
Update, 8:52 AM: TechCrunch looks at Yahoo!’s use of Flash. Another introduction in the Yahoo! Search Blog.
Update, 10:15 AM: O’Reilly Radar’s take is positive. Key points: “You can do more with the Yahoo! APIs than you can with Google’s. … I didn’t think their first maps API was anything to write home about, but they haven’t just played catch-up to Google with their second maps API. They’ve overtaken Google in functionality and in elegance” (his emphasis).
Maybe Yahoo hasn’t learned from Flickr when they were forced by consumers to abandon their flash interface and move to a AJAX one. I don’t care how useful the API is, flash is a non starter for me.
James Fee | 11/03/2005 at 11:20 AM | #
The Flash part is ignorable. There’s also a new AJAX API that is equivalent to Google’s. Except it also has geocoding. And they allow you to make direct access to map tiles, if you want. Google has to play catch-up now.
Jef Poskanzer | 11/03/2005 at 12:00 PM | #
Yea I guess you are right. I didn’t bother to look further when I saw the Flash plugin load. The API is much better than before and I think we are going to finally start seeing some great Yahoo! Maps mashups.
Still they need to dump the Flash part.
James Fee | 11/03/2005 at 12:03 PM | #
James, I’m interested in the reasons for your aversion, if you’d care to write them up in your blog at any point. (Yahoo is providing a set of APIs, as well as a default interface, but there seems great flexibility in the final deliverables we all might make.)
tx, jd/mm
John Dowdell | 11/03/2005 at 9:08 PM | #