Iframe :O

Google should be officially launching Mapplets this week, possibly as early as today. These are effectively widgets that can be added to Google maps - some are created by Google but there is also an API for third parties to produce their own. See

I suppose that we wont have to wait long for the official launch of the Google MAshup Editor too

@tomislav, I’ll second you on that request.

As soon as I woke up this morning and I saw this story in my RSS feed, before I washed my eyes clean, I totally read the title as Google To Launch Muppets Today.

This is definitely one of my favorite gadgets which I have been awaiting. The use has already been started at few of the sites likes orkut and the utility is really cool.

BeyondWWW

Could make great application - mensing publicly available data with - google’s maps

I can’t wait to see all of the widgets in action.

I think the big point missing in this article is the ability to stitch together any number of these mapplets onto a single map, or blending various mashups into one. Yahoo News describes this as: Multiple mapplets can be laid over Google’s map simultaneously, meaning a user theoretically could get a glimpse at where homes are being sold in a specific neighborhood while also analyzing the area’s recent crime patterns. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/200.....oogle_maps

Google Mapplets (http://www.google.com/apis/maps/documentation/mapplets/index.html) were launched in May: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFtfxv1JdXI

Today Google brings together Mapplets and “My Maps” within “Google Maps”.

I think it’s very powerful in potential. The thing that bothers me though, is that it is so damn complicated to add some useful mapplets to your map. Complicated, not for you and me of course, but for the general public. Note that:

- You will need to have a Google account.
- You will need to be logged in. If you’re not logged in, maps works just fine but you won’t be given the opportunity to add stuff. So people will never realize what they’re missing.
- If you are logged in, maps works just fine, so one has to be really boring and curious at the same time to go figure out what that ‘add content’-link or -button might be.
- Then you’ll have to have the patience to weed through the enormous directory of mapplets that are available, and find some stuff that’s actually answering one’s needs. People are not going to do this, they just want quick and easy added value.

Why has the internet become a success amongst the general public? Due to the invention of the WWW, useful stuff could actually be presented at a single location, without a need for any tweaking, setup or otherwise hard work before it started to be really useful. This enabled services to go viral — people could tell each other: just go to hotmail.com and you can write me e-mail messages, just go to google.com if you want to find stuff, just go to flickr.com if you wanna put photos online. I.e. useful functionality got easy enough to find and use to go viral. Now try to explain to your aunt how she can lookup events on Google maps using the Zvents mapplet. Even íf she manages to understand you, she won’t be able to spread the message to her bridge pals for sure.

it would be cool to be able to embed these maps on any site

Cool. I guess the iPhone had “the best version of Google Maps on the planet” for a few days, anyway.

Still waiting for AdSense release w/in the Maps API…the functions are there but have not be ‘unlocked’ - At the GDD ‘07 it was mentioned that AdSense for maps was going to be released ‘towards the end of June’ - Still patiently waiting…

I was agreeing with the other Tim, and then you got all philosophical… =^)

Google mapplets = Incredible potential, not yet user friendly.

Hopefully this can cross the chasm and achieve the potential that exists…

Mike, thanks for mentioning our Zvents mapplet. (I wrote the front-end code for the mapplet.)

Tim raises some excellent points. It is much too hard to install our mapplet. We can provide a short link to the install page as Mike did in the post, but once you click “Add it to Maps” what do you do? You have to figure out that you want the “Back to Google Maps” link (even though you didn’t come from there), and once you’re there you need to turn on the “Discover things to do - Zvents” checkbox.

It would help to have a fast track through all of this - just show me the map! Also Google could do something like Netvibes where they start you out with everything stored in a cookie so you don’t have to have an account at all.

BTW, for my fellow mapplet developers, I wrote a little piece of code called GAsync() that can speed up and simplify your mapplet - and let you write the same code for both the Mapplet API and the Maps API. Google will be including this in a future release of the Mapplet API, but there’s no need to wait - you can use the code right now by copying my function into your code.

Here are all the details, along with a test mapplet and a Maps API test page which uses the same code.

I hope that proves useful for someone!

Not difficult at all to add an appropriately sized widget to a page.

My only complaint is the “Map data by Tele Atlas” slug doesn’t write itself inside the boundaries of the map, it pops out a little past it on the left side.

This was a necessary and inevitable maturation step for Google Maps. I think the mashup phenomenon caught them by surprise, and they weren’t prepared with a method for managing all the various mashups. The mashups remained as isolated silos, which limited usefulness.

With mapplets, Google Maps can start to be considered a serious mapping platform. Not on par with pro level systems such as those from ESRI, mind you, but getting there.

Just to clarify the technical details:
Mapplets use the Google Gadgets API and a version of the Google Maps API, so they build on top of existing APIs, and developers can take advantage of both the Google Gadgets and Maps API functionality.

Hopefully, Mapplets will give developers a new way to show off their maps mashups, and will give users a new way to compare information. I showed off a demo of mashing up a lot of Vegas information to find a perfectly located hotel which people seemed to enjoy…

if someone mentioned this already, sorry.

the one thing that google maps could do to send it over the top is to give directions using local public transit. i’m sure that would be insanely difficult to do, but what a killer feature. perhaps now a killer mapplet?