API Updates from MapQuest, Esri and Chitika

Esri offers a statement on the future of its APIs, in response to recent announcements from Adobe regarding Flash for Mobile and runors about Silverlight.

We’re committed to providing the best technology for GIS developers and giving choices from the most widely used developer platforms in the market. By offering many options, we enable developers to address different customer needs and expectations. Our commitment is not based on a specific technology, but based on supporting the GIS developer regardless of the platform chosen. Each of these areas: JavaScript/HTML 5, Flex, Silverlight, and native application code, gain significant improvements in the upcoming ArcGIS 10.1 release.

- ArcGIS Server Blog via @cageyames

MapQuest offers some unlimited and less limited APIs no doubt in (rather late) response to Google's plan to charge for high transaction users. Thefully unlimited access option is the free Community Edition licence built on OpenStreetMap. Read the blog post and the licenses to be sure you understand the restrictions.

- MapQuest Dev Blog via @cageyames

I expected a stronger response from the mapping API providers to Google's announcement about fees for heavy users, but perhaps most realized the population impacted is not all that large. Still, Search Engine Land offered an alternative via a post from a the company behind Chitika Maps (never heard of it).The hook? The company "pays you" to use its API via ads on the maps.

 - Search Engine Journal

Podcast: Are GIS Pros Choosing Esri Community Maps over OpenStreetMap?

This month’s State of the Map US teamed with mappers, but not so many GIS professionals. A webinar on Esri’s Community Maps program drew 800 attendees just last week. Why are mappers and GIS pros choosing to give their data to one project or the other and what are the implications?

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Podcast: What We’d Tell the World on GIS Day

GIS Day provides a chance for geospatial practitioners to tell the world about what they and why it matters. Our editors share the key themes they’d want to get across to the public on this special day.

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Podcast: Web Mapping Platform Migration

Last week Ask.com moved off its longtime mapping platform to Microsoft’s Virtual Earth. What are the practical choices these days for those who want mapping as part of their portals? Has customization and a unique look and feel been overshadowed by a few strong hosted solutions to which everyone will eventually migrate? Our editors sort out the options and trends and end up using the “c” word - commodity.

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Migration News 2008

When I was a newbie in the industry the “big news” was a utility switching from one vendor to another. Smallworld wins were a big deal, for example and press announcements the way to tell the story. Now the turf is the Web and Microsoft is touting, via blog (and one PR), switching Yellowbook off MapQuest onto Virtual Earth and Windermere’s real estate tool Property Point 3 moving off an ESRI/Google solution onto the platform. I’m guessing, but don’t really know that the dollars were much bigger back in the “utility flip” days.

- Virtual Earth/Live Maps Blog