Yahoo! Maps
Encyclopedia
Yahoo! Maps is a free online mapping portal provided by Yahoo!
.
techniques. Some features:
Live traffic, address book, and send to phone features are also available.
) through the Yahoo! Maps Developer APIs. Many exciting new web sites have come about recently by displaying content from other sources on top of maps provided by the various mapping portals (the Google Maps API getting the most publicity). The Yahoo! Maps APIs come in three basic flavors:
Yahoo! offers a number of low-level APIs to support maps, for geocoding
, getting a map image, searching for a local business, or retrieving traffic information. Some other Yahoo! services, such as
Flickr
and Upcoming.org
, have their content available through web services, with interesting potential for mashups.
, Tele Atlas
, and public domain sources. Detailed street network data is currently available for the United States, Canada, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, and most European countries. Country borders, cities, and water bodies are mapped for the rest of the world.
Moderate resolution satellite imagery is available worldwide. 1-2 meter resolution is available for most of the contiguous United States, and select cities worldwide.
Yahoo!
Yahoo! Inc. is an American multinational internet corporation headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, United States. The company is perhaps best known for its web portal, search engine , Yahoo! Directory, Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Groups, Yahoo! Answers, advertising, online mapping ,...
.
News
- On May 16, 2007, Yahoo! released a new map style designed by the cartography company Cartifact. Data and imagery were also supplied by Cartifact, including shaded relief showing land surface features and land cover coloring indicating major environmental zones.
- At some point before May 2007 maps of India were added to http://in.maps.yahoo.com which is a non Flash interface to Yahoo Maps. In addition to reasonably detailed Indian coverage (not available through http://maps.yahoo.com), the site also allows a user to view maps for the rest of the world.
Available services
The main Yahoo! Maps site offers street maps and driving directions for the United States and Canada. It has the following notable features:- Address Book: Registered Yahoo! users can store a list of commonly used street addresses, making it unnecessary to type them in again. A recently entered address can be quickly recalled by selecting one from a drop-down list.
- Live Traffic: Traffic incident markers and current highway conditions can be viewed on the map.
- Point of Interest Finder: SmartView (tm) can be used to find businesses and other points of interest near the current location, with clickable icons that supply an address, a telephone number, and links for more information.
- Driving Directions: Driving directions can be displayed on a map or in printable form, with optional turn-by-turnTurn-by-turn navigationTurn-by-turn navigation is a feature of some GPS navigation devices where directions for a selected route are continually presented to the user in the form of spoken and visual instructions. The system keeps the user up-to-date about the best route to the destination, and is often updated according...
maps, or as simple text. Links to driving directions can be e-mailed, and text directions sent to mobile phones.
Yahoo! Local Maps Rich Internet Application
A new and improved Yahoo! Local Maps has been recently made available. It offers maps with significantly more interactivity for broadband users. It is written using AJAX, leveraging Rich Internet ApplicationRich Internet application
A Rich Internet Application is a Web application that has many of the characteristics of desktop application software, typically delivered either by way of a site-specific browser, via a browser plug-in, independent sandboxes, extensive use of JavaScript, or virtual machines...
techniques. Some features:
- Draggable maps: The current map view can be manipulated by dragging it with the mouse or tapping the arrow keys. Zoom level can be controlled via the mouse scroll wheel, "Page Up"/"Page Down" keys, or the map's zoom bar.
- Multi-point driving directions: Multiple addresses can be entered and manually reordered for complex driving directions.
- Find On The Map: A local search by business name or category can be typed into the "Find On The Map" box to locate it in the current map view. A list of clickable point of interest categories is also available. The results can be further refined by user rating, or related category.
- Widgets: A number of widgets over the map include a navigator widget, map type (map, satellite & hybrid) controller and a zoom level control.
- Satellite Imagery: Labelled (hybrid) and unlabelled satellite imagery is available worldwide.
- Overview map: Collapsible overview map provides context, with draggable grey area controlling the main map view.
- International Coverage: Outside the US and Canada, Yahoo! Maps Beta can recognize city, province, and country names, and provide a small-scale map or satellite views.
- Right click to set waypoint: an origin, destination, or midpoint can be set by right-clicking on the desired location on the map.
- Draggable markers: Any marker can be dragged to the 'Get Map' text entry area to add that location to a route.
Live traffic, address book, and send to phone features are also available.
Yahoo! Map Web Services
Developers can embed Yahoo! Maps into their own web pages (to create a mashupMashup (web application hybrid)
In Web development, a mashup is a Web page or application that uses and combines data, presentation or functionality from two or more sources to create new services...
) through the Yahoo! Maps Developer APIs. Many exciting new web sites have come about recently by displaying content from other sources on top of maps provided by the various mapping portals (the Google Maps API getting the most publicity). The Yahoo! Maps APIs come in three basic flavors:
- The Flash APIs, that use the Adobe FlashAdobe FlashAdobe Flash is a multimedia platform used to add animation, video, and interactivity to web pages. Flash is frequently used for advertisements, games and flash animations for broadcast...
platform. Three variations, allowing the developer to write in JavaScriptJavaScriptJavaScript is a prototype-based scripting language that is dynamic, weakly typed and has first-class functions. It is a multi-paradigm language, supporting object-oriented, imperative, and functional programming styles....
, ActionScriptActionScriptActionScript is an object-oriented language originally developed by Macromedia Inc. . It is a dialect of ECMAScript , and is used primarily for the development of websites and software targeting the Adobe Flash Player platform, used on Web pages in the form of...
, or Adobe FlexAdobe FlexAdobe Flex is a software development kit released by Adobe Systems for the development and deployment of cross-platform rich Internet applications based on the Adobe Flash platform...
1.5, are available. - The Ajax API, for interactive maps that use capabilities inherent in web browsers, without using the Flash plug-in. AjaxAjax (programming)Ajax is a group of interrelated web development methods used on the client-side to create asynchronous web applications...
applications are written in JavaScriptJavaScriptJavaScript is a prototype-based scripting language that is dynamic, weakly typed and has first-class functions. It is a multi-paradigm language, supporting object-oriented, imperative, and functional programming styles....
. - The "Simple" API. The Simple API is basically an XML data format, an extension of GeoRSSGeoRSSGeoRSS is an emerging standard for encoding location as part of a Web feed. GeoRSS is an emerging standard for encoding location as part of a Web feed. GeoRSS is an emerging standard for encoding location as part of a Web feed. (Web feeds are used to describe feeds ("channels") of content, such as...
, for displaying point of interest data on top of Yahoo!'s main map site. The Flash and Ajax APIs also support display of GeoRSSGeoRSSGeoRSS is an emerging standard for encoding location as part of a Web feed. GeoRSS is an emerging standard for encoding location as part of a Web feed. GeoRSS is an emerging standard for encoding location as part of a Web feed. (Web feeds are used to describe feeds ("channels") of content, such as...
formatted data.
Yahoo! offers a number of low-level APIs to support maps, for geocoding
Geocoding
Geocoding is the process of finding associated geographic coordinates from other geographic data, such as street addresses, or zip codes...
, getting a map image, searching for a local business, or retrieving traffic information. Some other Yahoo! services, such as
Flickr
Flickr
Flickr is an image hosting and video hosting website, web services suite, and online community that was created by Ludicorp in 2004 and acquired by Yahoo! in 2005. In addition to being a popular website for users to share and embed personal photographs, the service is widely used by bloggers to...
and Upcoming.org
Upcoming.org
Upcoming is a social event calendar website that launched in 2003, founded by Andy Baio. On October 4, 2005, Upcoming.org was acquired by Yahoo!.- Features :...
, have their content available through web services, with interesting potential for mashups.
Map data
The street network and other vector data Yahoo! maps uses is from NavteqNAVTEQ
Navteq is a Chicago, Illinois-based provider of Geographic Information Systems data and is a dominant company in providing the base electronic navigable maps...
, Tele Atlas
Tele Atlas
Tele Atlas is a Netherlands-based company founded in 1984 which delivers digital maps and other dynamic content for navigation and location-based services, including personal and in-car navigation systems, and provides data used in a wide range of mobile and Internet map applications...
, and public domain sources. Detailed street network data is currently available for the United States, Canada, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, and most European countries. Country borders, cities, and water bodies are mapped for the rest of the world.
Moderate resolution satellite imagery is available worldwide. 1-2 meter resolution is available for most of the contiguous United States, and select cities worldwide.