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June 30, 2005

Your Place on Yahoo! Maps

There's so much geographical data out there...now it's possible to overlay it onto Yahoo! Maps. Many of you told us you'd like the ability to post your geographical data on our maps -- be it a store, an open house, a garage sale, earth quakes, geo-cached treasure or newsworthy events. And you want it to be SUPER easy to place your content within our maps to get a real world perspective. In response to feedback, Yahoo! now offers an open XML API. It's free, stable, and backward compatible.

One of the main goals of this API is to lower the access threshold so that anyone can use it without having to program. For example, we accept street addresses in addition to lat/long inputs. So no need to hack -- we do all the hard work for you. We also provide space on the page for developer attribution, and links to go back to the referral page. Check out a couple of cool examples that have already been posted using the API: bay area traffic cams and a tribute to Sideways.

The Yahoo! Maps open API is based on geoRSS, a RSS 2.0 with w3c geo extension. For more information check out developer.yahoo.net/maps. We also offer API support via a group forum at yws-maps. We welcome your feedback. Yes, it is just that simple!

Norman Shi
Yahoo! Local

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Comments

One day after Google's API? Wow, you guys are head and head. Well, at least the Yahoo one doesn't require you to do the geocoding, that kinda bugs me with Google...

Posted by: tom | June 30, 2005 03:01 PM

Damn I wish I was a developper to play around with developer.yahoo.net

Posted by: Guillaume | June 30, 2005 03:38 PM

Heh,
Funny thing is that Y!Travel did a trip based on Sideways as their demo four months ago.

Something about that movie that gives it a cult like following...

Posted by: jr | June 30, 2005 09:39 PM

Yahoo! Maps' directions are usually excellent. However, one I received today for a route from Chicago's Midway Airport to a Hampton Inn in Joliet (1521 Riverboat Center Dr.) sent me 'round Robin's barn.' Instead of routing southwest down I-55 directly to Joliet, the recommended route suggested going southeast on I-294 toward Indiana and then coming back west to Joliet on I-80. This route would almost double the shorter mileage. And it's not needed because of a traffic or construction problem. Probably some type of computer glitch. Good luck!

Posted by: Chris Knudsen | August 16, 2005 12:23 PM

Just in case someone is reading this, and is looking for an UK geocoder to use for Yahoo Maps.

Currently Yahoo geocoding only works for the States. For people in the UK, have a look at our website www.isharemaps.com

Posted by: Postcode Geocoder | May 10, 2006 05:28 AM