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June 30, 2005
Google Maps API and Greasemap
The Where 2.0 conference I've just been at was quite fun, and inspirational. Among other announcements, Google introduced their new Google Maps APIs. This, plus all the "mashups" that showed hacked versions of Google Maps used in conjunction with other sites, and Tim O'Reilly speaking about "Web 2.0" involving users using open web technologies to "remix" other sites, inspired me to create Greasemap.Technorati Tags: greasemap, where_20, geolocation, geospatial, maps, googlemaphacks, googlemapapi, googlemap
Greasemap is a Greasemonkey-based plugin for Firefox that automatically adds maps to the top of pages containing either geotags (GeoURL or other standards), or regex-recognizable addresses. It works by parsing each page you visit, from Javascript, looking for addresses or other patterns that correspond to locations. If it finds any, it embeds in the page a new toplevel IFRAME at the top, which loads content from www.vinq.com after sending the addresses. This "greasemap.html" web service on Vinq.com attempts to geocode the addresses, then combines them with any lat+long coordinates provided in the page, and embeds one or two Google Maps using the Vinq.com Google Maps API Key (since the iframe comes from Vinq).
I did this more as a proof of concept than anything, though I have already found it useful on sites such as switchboard.com, whitepages.com, and www.apple.com/retail . If a page includes just one address, currently Greasemap shows 2 maps -- a width-limited one at left that is more zoomed out, to show context, and a wider zoomed in one at right.
The Greasemap page lists some of the improvements I plan to make to it, but I also welcome your feedback and suggestions at info@vinq.com
Posted by mark at June 30, 2005 09:08 PM
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