- Yahoo vs. Google -
Yahoo is in the lead right now, and has been from the get-go, in my experience. Google’s AJAX maps API has too many restrictions that make it impractical for some uses.
Google just recently added geocoding (translating address info into coordinates that the map systems need to work with), whereas Yahoo has supported it from the beginning. The main distinction, though, is that overall it just seems like Google wants a lot more control over how you use their map service than Yahoo does.
Both require you to register for a key to use the API, but the Google key is tied to a specific fully qualified domain name (including sub-domains, not just the primary domain part), whereas Yahoo does not impose this limitation.
I’m currently in the middle of doing a project based on a WordPress MU installation, which (by default) uses dynamically generated subdomains for each new user that signs up, which the Google API obviously wreaks havoc with. You can work around this (in WPMU) by using directories instead of subdomains (ie: muinstall.com/test1 vs. test1.muinstall.com), but it’s still quite ridiculous.
One Comment
We could use Yahoo! maps, it’s not that big of a deal both are so the same.
Opinion: Although Y! Maps has a better API from the beginning it still was second out of the gate and most likely learned and opened up more to increase adoption. G Maps had something really open when it first came out so it had nothing to compare it to.
I’m limiting myself to the little knowledge about their ajax maps. Maybe it was different way back and Y! actually had an API well before G maps.