Google Maps API2 + Local Search Marketing Checklist
Google Maps recently released the Google Maps API2. Garett Rogers indicates, based on changes in the API's Terms of Use, it's not as much WILL there be ads in API maps but WHEN will it happen.

The Terms of Use don't say anything about sharing map ad click revenues. I think Google WILL share money with eCartographers and further, that this will help drive the next wave of offline/online convergence. That will happen on mobile devices. As we search for love and good deals (or good deals on love) in the real world :)

WHEW. So to start at the beginning, here are some of the more intelligible-to-this-non-developer changes to the Google Map API:

• NO PAGE VIEW LIMITS "If, however, your site gets more than 500,000 page views per day, we ask that you talk to us before you launch so that we can prepare in advance to handle your traffic."
• 90-day notice before any advertising-related changes, ability to opt-out of ads on your maps
• custom map controls
• custom map types
• Much smaller JavaScript download "improves performance and stability"

All this adds up to better maps. We should all be watching Google Maps Mania to see how the change in the API changes what the developers are making.

Now I want to - loosely - tie in a web components post by nat from the O'Reilly blog. He mentions the new Google Maps API because it "includes a... system for developers to build and integrate their own controls onto the map."

This ability to change the controls on maps is a big deal to him because it means that developers can better customize map interaction to the needs of their users. Yes - this means better maps. To Nat though it also points to an increasing trend towards a "...vibrant third-party market for custom controls."

This "vibrant third-party custom control market" could - as I understand it from my idealistic and abstract perspective - point towards part of the solution for newspapers (can newspapers figure out how to reward - not the writers - but the republishers? can developers save the sinking journalism ship if journalists have a News API?).

WHEW. Ok, to reel this back in to the original idea. Maps + Mobile = doorway to local.

The online local marketing checklist:

• get your site looking good for mobile browsers (would you like information on this?)
• advertise on maps (right now it’s only Google – that will change)
• figure out how to market with the Google Map API (or whatever's the NEXT map API)
• investigate click to call advertising
• track your incoming calls
• connect the entirety of your inventory to the web so that searchers know whether or not you have their products in stock (when necessary technologies become available)
• be prepared for changes in how people shop as technology changes (you will see FAR more in-store price comparisons happening)

Priority One:
Help fund and test the new eco system. And let me know if you want to have a creative discussion about using maps in your marketing campaign (919-433-3139). Fair warning: I'll blog the conversation in the interest of pushing the discussion further... unless you become a customer ;)

via outer-court

Also see:
Map builder discussion group
Louisville, KY (my hometown) Google Maps mashup!!
Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive | permalink | +marktd |