Chapter 1. Introducing Google Mapplets

When the Google Maps API was released in June 2005, there was an explosion of location-related software development. Craigslist apartment listings, Chicago crime data, Flickr photos, current news events, happy-hour locations, weather, historical sites, public transportation...just about any piece of content imaginable could be overlaid on a map using this API with a little JavaScript.

Fast-forward a few years. So many web sites have a mapping component that at least two sites are dedicated to tracking this phenomenon: Google Maps Mashups (http://googlemapsmania.blogspot.com) and Programmable Web (http://programmableweb.com). According to Programmable Web, nearly 1,200 of the 1,400 mapping applications are using the Google Maps API—and this is just for the sites Programmable Web is tracking.