MapQuest now has an API

MapQuest Now Has an API

March 7th, 2006 · 8 Comments · GIS

Anyone check out MapQuest’s API? I’m not sure when it was “released”, but its new to me.

Probably big news since so many websites use MapQuest to show directions and office locations.

Tags: MapQuest·Programming

8 responses so far ↓

1 Matt // Mar 7, 2006 at 8:13 am

Hi James,

It looks like the MapQuest OpenAPI just came out today. There was a news release sent out. http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/index.jsp?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20060307005204&newsLang=en

I think it is tied in with the O’Reilly Emerging Technology conference going on in San Diego. Tuesday afternoon, MapQuest will be presenting a session on the new API.
http://conferences.oreillynet.com/cs/et2006/view/e_sess/8516
2 Very Spatial » Mapquest Has New API // Mar 7, 2006 at 11:11 am

[...] Nomially from Spatially Adjusted, but the news is in pretty much everyone’s blog! [...]
3 edparsons.com » Blog Archive » MapQuest API - a different business model ? // Mar 7, 2006 at 12:34 pm

[...] As James at Spatially Adjusted points out MapQuest joins GMY with it’s mapping API. Beyond the “Me too” aspects what is interesting here is that MapQuests’ business model is already very well established as an application service provider. [...]
4 Brian Timoney // Mar 7, 2006 at 1:47 pm

Have you ever showed up to a party so late that half the people have already left and the other half have been drinking to the extent that they barely recognize you, let alone greet you with anything that resembles enthusiasm?

BT

Re the “mashup” contest–I could’ve used free admission to Where 2.0 about a week ago when I signed up… I guess I’ll pass on the opportunity to “push the ‘mashup genre’ forward. (Although I find myself oddly fascinated by the above use of the word “genre”–obviously somewhere in the bowels of Mapquest’s marketing department dwells a liberal arts major with her chic geek glasses diverting her creative juices from her stalled novel to her employer’s contest rules…o cruel fate.)
5 Phillip Holmstrand // Mar 7, 2006 at 2:25 pm

First impression is that their mapping interface isn’t as cool as Google or Yahoo, but an API that lets you do routing could be very powerful.

There API developer site is very slow right now, which might be because they are getting hammered by a lot of users. Still doesn’t seem like any kind of excuse for a company this large (AOL.)

I’ll have to look into this closer…
6 Ant // Mar 7, 2006 at 7:40 pm

brian - I printed out your comment and handed a copy to our marketing person. I think he ran off to complete his novel When I get back to the office, I’m going to be wallpapering it everywhere.

Phillip - It wont be coming out of Beta until the presentation layer also has that “cool” stuff…but I hope you take the time to check out both the routing, and also the geocoding..and the fact that because its all INTEGRATED, The Mapping part itself becomes soooo much easier…no need to go around geocoding separately, you can just hand the addresses to the map object and it geocodes and plots them.

Thanks,
Ant
7 Phillip Holmstrand // Mar 8, 2006 at 8:52 am

Hey Ant (if you haven’t left yet), does the max 50,000 maps per day apply to the appID or calling IP address?
8 Ant // Mar 8, 2006 at 11:33 am

AppID.

Also the Geocoder is availble both as javascript objects/API, and also as REST service