Tell HN: We just launched GeoAPI.com (read/write geo API) | Hacker News Reader

Tell HN: We just launched GeoAPI.com (read/write geo API)

geoapi.com

77 pointsmariusae30 comments

The sticking point with this, as with most geo APIs which depend on non-free data, is the terms of use:

"The data in the API is our intellectual property or that of our partners who provided it to us. It is not yours and we are not granting you any broad license to use this data outside of the use of the API."

"You agree that you will not, and will not assist or enable others to:

a) cache, record, pre-fetch, or otherwise store any portion of the Company Content or attempt or provide a means to execute any "bulk download" operations;

...

j) make requests against the API that are not user initiated;"

http://code.google.com/p/geo-api/wiki/TermsOfUse

Well, thankfully there is http://www.openstreetmap.org

As you might guess, the ownership over the data is a tricky issue, where there are many variables that aren't under our control. Our objective is to make the information as open as possible within these constraints. One thing to note, however, is that the userview portion (i.e. the data that an app WRITES to the API) does remain under the app's control (i.e. developers don't relinquish ownership). Over time, we do think there will be an opportunity to have developers contribute their improvements to a common pool of information to benefit everyone.

This is why I don't understand copyright law. Aren't data facts? Facts can't be copyrighted, right? Where a business is located is a fact. How can they say how someone else can use that fact?

Facts are not copyrighted, but a collection of facts as such may be copyrighted, assuming there is some creative activity involved in compiling the collection. So, a list of the most common English words would be copyrighted, since there is creative effort involved in deciding whether a word is common.

http://www.iusmentis.com/copyright/crashcourse/protection/

Think contract law, not copyright law.

By signing up, you are making a contract with geoapi. If you violate that agreement, then they'd (potentially) have a case for breach of contract.

IANAL, but I think you're right. They really can't tell you what to do with public data even if they provided it to you, because as you said you can't copyright facts. Feist Publications vs. Rural Telephone Services is the most relevant case:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feist_Publications_v._Rural_Tel...

It gets hairy though because you are agreeing to their terms of use in return for the API key, and I'm not sure how that factors in. They're well within their rights to refuse service to you, but if you were able to scrape their data without agreeing to their terms, it may be legal.

Of course there's a million other places to get this data, and I'm not suggesting you scrape theirs. But I don't think there's anything stopping you legally, just some FUD in their TOS.

Would be very curious to hear from the site owners on this topic.

I want to use this, but I'm afraid I will receive that email: "We're sorry, but due to circumstances beyond our control, we regret to inform you that further use of our service will require a monthly subscription fee and the sacrifice of your first born."

That's a really nice service. So, how much is this going to cost?

Right now the model is free. We limit it to 20K hits per day. If you need more than that, ping us and we can help out (api at geoapi.com)

Will you charge in the future? Will there always be a free plan with a limited number of hits?

There will always be a free plan with a relatively reasonable volume - at minimum, it will always be a 'fremium' kind of thing. At which point we start charging is, frankly, to ensure that we can at least cover serving costs.

Just out of curiosity, where do you get your data?

Haven't had time to dig in but nice work with the gfx, looks great.

Why does this only includes 10's of thousands of POIs? Why not include USGS and GeoNames points... there are millions of them.

Is this supposed to be strictly urban points?

not at all -- we're aggressively adding datasets, and those are among the ones that are on the top of our list :-)

I really like it.

Are you allowing API users to cache/store data?

Glad you find it useful! Yes, you can write data to the API via custom views. See Demo 1 at http://code.google.com/p/geo-api/wiki/Demos for an example of writing check-in comments to locations. Full user view API docs here: http://code.google.com/p/geo-api/wiki/ViewUser

Groovy, good luck with that!

Excuse me "query the world" what exactly does that mean? They need to describe it so that it is instantly compelling and they fail.

It looks good but my biggest unanswered question when I saw it: What's the difference between this and the Google Geocode API?

Hi - it's actually quite different. As of now, we don't (yet) have a forward geocoding api exposed. Rather, most of the API functionality that's live is for backward geocoding. As in, with Google's Geocoder, you give a string and you get back a place. With us, you give a place (i.e. lat/lon) and you get where that place is and what's around it.

That being said, a number of people have been pinging us about getting simple geocoding functionality, so stay tuned for that as well :).

BTW, there are also a number of other differences - below is a quick list: - Type of data: One of things we do is combine a number of different datasets (16+ M businesses, points of interest, intersections, etc...) - Query type: You get very powerful expressiveness in the types of queries you do. You can literally make a request for 'Japanese restaurants that are within 1 mile and that are open at 10pm.' - Media layers: For most entities, you can get media layers such as Twitter and Flickr. For example, you can get tweets around the mission (http://api.geoapi.com/v1/e/mission-san-francisco-ca/view/twi...). We're adding more layers as we go. - UserView: Each developer gets a private namespace into which they can add information and run geo queries on it. Basically, you can annotate the world with close to zero effort.

The query syntax is pretty cool, but as far as raw geocoding I don't really get it -- Google has a much bigger dataset than this, offers reverse geocoding just fine (With good neighborhood data in the US and Europe). And I gather you are just proxying requests to twitter and flickr (and not actually storing all this for all places yourself) -- why wouldn't I just query their APIs directly?

Not trying to be snarky, I just don't understand....

Huh?

New York: http://maps.google.com/maps/geo?q=40.724039,-74.00176

What am I missing here?

This looks awesome, thanks for posting this. I plan on taking a look at it and using it for an iPhone app or two.

looks great based on what I've read in product & demos. would have loved to use this in my last project instead of geonames

Why reverse geocoding but not geocoding?

In the werks :)

Congrats on the acquisition!

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