Question

Ok so basically I am talking with someone about building a way for users to post locations to a map and have a pin over the location.

I know Google Maps can do this and probably has the best documentation/support. I was just wondering if/what other options there are. I have found Pushpin and Mappy but I really don’t know much about either of them.

So what maps do you all work with/why?

Answer 1

So to answer your question. I use the Google Maps API.

Why?

I think there are a whole lot of good reasons that make Google Maps an extremely valuable mapping solution for web developers. I realise I will probably sound like a hand waving evangelist, but here goes:

• Very well documented API
• Access to a range of excellent tile sets for your maps (topographic, satellite, road maps, terrain).
• Access to the Google Earth 3D plugin with very few changes to a standard Google Maps site.
• Constant upgrades and improvements to the API and it’s features. I started working on my Google Maps project a few years ago and in that time I have seen new tilesets, the upgraded GUI controls, mousewheel zoom, Google Earth plugin … I am sure this list will get longer.
• StreetView. I don’t actually use this myself, but Streetview is a fantastic feature that isn’t duplicated in the other mapping solutions.
• Extensive set of very useful tools in the API. GLog, distance calculations, GLatLngRegion etc …
• GeoCoding. I recently dabbled with the GeoCoding API that Google provides and found it was very easy to use and extremely powerful.
• The Google Maps Group – I have asked these guys for a help a number of times and found prompt and accurate responses that rival StackOverflow.
• Ability to overlay tiles over the Google map tiles (GOverlay).
• Ability to implement entirely custom tilsets that leverage the Google Maps scaling/panning framework.
• Custom map themes allows you to integrate the map look and feel with your page color scheme.