Google Maps API - More Than A Map | Hacker News Reader

Google Maps API - More Than A Map

morethanamap.com

138 pointscleverjake42 comments

Cynicism aside, this is very true. I've used a done of different mapping libraries, and the actual map display part is Google's weakest part- leaflet.js and ModestMaps are much faster, particularly on mobile devices.

But on the flip side, I've never found a provider capable of geocoding as well as Google- especially with response times that allow you to make a typeahead address searcher. Google's Styled Map Tiles are still ahead of anyone else's offerings.

Even when you have a concrete latitude/longitude point, Google returns street addresses a lot more often than alternatives, such as Bing. And you're right about the response time, in comparison Bing is extremely slow.

Unfortunately after getting passed the free tier, it gets kind of expensive.

I have been happily using Yahoo's geocoding service, with google coded as a backup service. My application doesn't require speed, so I don't know how it stacks up against google in that regard. I have run into a couple of cases where yahoo's street data was not as fresh as google's.

Not worldwide (Australia only) and not as permissive with input format, but geocoderweb.veda.com.au is very fast.

Maybe (ok, not maybe) I'm getting too philosophical about such decisions these days, but Google is, at it's heart, an ad company that happens to be really good at tech. Nokia is a tech company that is really good at tech. My choice is Nokia - they're just a closer match to the view I have of myself.

I'd argue that google is an ai company at heart, that just happens to make a fortune selling ads.

I think Google is a tech company that happens to be really good at ads (which is uses to fund all of its tech). Google didn't set out to sell advertising, it was just a way that they could continue solving big problems.

For example, I don't think Google is spending big dollars on automated cars to advance its advertising business.

Google makes 99% of its money from ads, and it has pretty much always been that way.

They're definitely an ad company.

Their business model is undoubtedly ads. But I think that's slightly different from saying they are an ad company. As far as I can tell, the primary reason that Google exists is for clever technical people to do new geeky stuff. They need a way to fund that geeky stuff and that's where ads come in, but the ads and the revenue aren't where their real passion seems to be. If they could simply sit back and watch the $$ rolling in through ads without ever doing another bit of innovation, I doubt they would do it.

This is quite different from the vast majority of companies. BP, for example, don't exist because their peope are passionate about drilling oil - it's because drilling oil is a very good way of making money. Even companies like MicroSoft exist (and pretty much always existed) primarily as a money-making business. Sure they attract lots of nerds, but the money driven the company's choices of where to deploy those nerds.

Google is a data company. Their best work is all around capturing, processing, and doing useful things with large amounts of data. This also happens to make them really good at doing targeted advertisements too.

True, it's more than a map. It's a map AND a monthly bill!

It's mostly free actually, and the pricing is very flexible otherwise: http://googlegeodevelopers.blogspot.com/2012/06/lower-pricin...

Or pay a small $10k+ fee if you want to do one of these common things:

* Your site is only available to paying customers.

* Your site is only accessible within your company or on your intranet.

* Your application relates to enterprise dispatch, fleet management, business asset tracking, or similar applications.

They have different billing structure for enterprise stuffs, so!? businesses can usually negotiate terms with sales reps.

If I remember correctly they were fined for giving enterprise access for free: http://searchengineland.com/french-court-fines-google-660000...

My point was that it's not "mostly free", any serious business or website with a decent amount of traffic will be paying $$.

And if you are building a startup that wants to compete in these markets ?

The definition of enterprise is pretty arbitrary these days.

From my understanding you only get charged when accessing the map API server side. If you use the JS API in the client's browser the requests don't count against your quota. Google even suggests that your script can pass the information back to your server to be stored. Therefore, you can scale your user base without incurring high costs.

That's not true. The number of client API loads are counted, but the number of map tiles loaded by that client is not. i.e. you are charged per page load, irrespective of the user activity on that page.

Given for example the geocoding API, which is js based and requires no API key, I don't see how they would know who to charge.

As stated by the docs:

Use of the Google Geocoding API is subject to a query limit of 2,500 geolocation requests per day

if you're using the server endpoint, which perhaps checks what server the request is coming from- I have no idea. The JS, client-side version definitely requires a key.

It's 50c per 1000 requests. So if you were building a semi-popular website or iPhone app with 10K requests/day it would be $150 a month. In what bizarro world is that mostly free ?

You only get charged if you go over 25K/day. So if your app did 10K/day, it would be completely free ;-)

If you did 35K/day (every day), it would cost $150/mo.

In addition to what chrisbroadfoot said, 10K requests for $5? In what bizarro world is that a problem, given the service you are receiving?

Remember that's 10K requests for $5 NOW. We could see it jump back to its original price at any time of Google's choosing which would have been $40.

But the 10K requests bit is arbitrary. My point is that it is not mostly free. It's not really even close to being free.

Well sure, the price of anything can change in the future. It's difficult to plan for that.

But as others have said, you get 25K free per day. It really depends how big your audience is as to whether it's "mostly" free.

Exactly, you are receiving a valuable service which is best in class for what it does. If you are using it at commercial levels then paying for it makes sense. If your business has enough traffic to fall into the paid tier and you can't afford $5 per 10K requests then something is probably wrong with your business model.

I guess they are feeling the heat with the recent changes in pricing

I can't help but feel this is an attempt to calm people from switching to mapbox (http://mapbox.com/) and OSM. The price is now on par but unless they improve their JavaScript API I can't find a compelling reason to go back to Google Maps.

Mapping leads to directions leads to scanning leads to navigation leads to automated cars leads to autonomous bipeds.

And facebook is trying to do to social mapping what google is doing to world mapping.

I like the nice scrolling effect within the developer-stories/

Funny thing, in the last story, while it says Brazil, the background is from Women's Bridge (Puente de la Mujer) in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puente_de_la_Mujer

Well it shows the Google finally understands just-in-time or opportunistic Marketing.

Their autonomous driving cars are going to change every market out there.

This is marketed to (potential and current) API users, not iOS users. They have been getting some competition after their move to charge for API usage.

Google didn't invent nor has a monopoly on autonomous driving cars. They are one of MANY players.

So pretty sure everyone else will be able to change every market out there as well.

Very well made.

It looks nice, but it breaks default browser navigation standards. The space bar doesn't paginate, and scrolling to the end of the page doesn't stop scrolling, but forces me back to the top of the page. This is happening in Safari, can't attest to other browsers, but I found it distracting.

If only there was a native iOS app for this! Time to switch to Android I think.

http://www.csmonitor.com/Innovation/Horizons/2012/0926/iPhon...

Definitely more than a map. Google's latest revenue source.

So unfortunately as a developer I would rather spend my efforts helping to improve OpenStreetMap.

True, but if you're a business that needs this kind of data for your product, it's almost certainly cheaper to pay Google than to either develop it in-house or make contributing to OpenStreetMap part of your business. Personally, I'd rather build things than pay someone else for what they built, especially if the thing is interesting or "fun"; but reality confronts most of us. Smarter to pay for the wheel than reinvent your own (or waiting for someone else to do it, for free) ... at least, that's the assumption I'm operating on.

I think you misread what I said.

It was that IF I was going to spend money on a mapping API I would rather use it to improve an open platform. Especially for something as key as mapping.

Gotcha, I did misread.

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