Yahoo! Local & Maps Blog

Like the London Tube Map, recording and retrieval of locations and their relationships doesn’t always have to do with their Lat/Lon. There is a more elegant way to abstract the relationships of location, and unambiguously describe places in a permanent, language-neutral manner. Since Where on Earth joined Yahoo! in 2005, Yahoo! has geo-enabled the network, including geo-tagging advertising, Flickr photos, Yahoo! Maps, and so many of the location based services that Yahoo! has offered.

Yahoo! is now offering a developer preview of this Yahoo! Internet Location Platform.

Here’s an example of the new platform in action. Check out this photo on Flickr. This photo was geo-tagged by the user, and since it was placed on a map, we were able to give it a set of these location tags. If you browse in to the tagged metadata using the Flickr API, you’ll notice a set of geo-tags called WOEID (Where On Earth ID’s) which are permanent, unambiguous, language neutral tags that represent that location.

Since we have content with a tag, we can find out some interesting things, tag 727232 for example, is Amsterdam, and we can use the new API’s that we’re releasing to find out all sorts of relevant relationship information, including:

• The parent, the administrative region of Amsterdam
• Neighbors, such as Landsmeer, Zaandam, and Watergang.
• Belong To’s, such as North Holland, Western Europe, and the Europe/Amsterdam Time Zone
• and more!

(note, the links above are XML, and may not be openable in all browsers)

This service allows you to discover location relationships from free-text place names, tag your content with location ID’s for easy indexing, disambiguate numerous objects tagged with the same location, and so on.

Go ahead and check out the documentation on the Yahoo! Developer Network at http://developer.yahoo.com/geo/

Congrats to the Yahoo! Geo team on this preview,

Michael Lawless
Sr. Product Manager, Yahoo! Maps

PS  For more on subject, check out the post by Dan Catt here.

One of the most requested updates at the Yahoo! Developer Network is to upgrade the Maps API’s to support Actionscript 3.  In fact, over 500 of you have voted for this, and your wish is our command.  Starting today, you’ll now be able to work with a native AS3 mapping component, brought to you by our own Zach Graves, Yahoo! Maps and the YDN.

Highly compact at only 30kb, this component won’t weigh your widget down, and those of you who know AS3 know that a native component handles raster graphics and overlays with ease, greatly improving performance. The new api supports complex custom markers, local search, geocoding, and of course maps, satellite and hybrid out of the box.

Take a look at the YDN release information where there’s more info, examples, and a couple of screencasts, and for you developers looking for the Flash edge, you’re welcome.

Michael Lawless
Sr. Product Manager - Yahoo! Maps

August 29th, 2006 was an exciting day for us; it was the day after Flickr first announced their Geotagging feature using the Yahoo! Maps API, and they had exceeded their first month projection of 1 million geotagged photos in a single day. It goes to show that putting pictures and places together go hand-in-hand like peas and carrots, Bonnie and Clyde… You get the idea.

Today Flickr released two new maps-related features. The new Flickr Places pages will take some of the 30+ million publicly geotagged photos already uploaded and organize them into key themes for over 100,000 locations. Each Places page features interesting photos and photographers, related Flickr Groups, and the tags that make that area unique.

The maps page itself gets a great upgrade as well, with an improved world map where people can easily view popular and up-to-date themes. Clicking on any of these hot tags will take you to a selection of current photos from that area, tagged with more detailed information. This will provide a great visual lens into the latest interesting things happening around the world.

These new features further demonstrate our commitment to a global platform and will be available in English, French, Spanish, German, Italian, Portuguese, Korean, and traditional Chinese.

Michael lawless

Sr. Product Manager, Yahoo! Maps

Real estate is the ultimate local business. That’s why our friends at Yahoo! Real Estate are always focused on making their products as local as possible. Recently, their launch of a home loan rate finder that can search for the best local rates caught our eye. With all the buzz around mortgages and real estate, house hunters and home owners alike are looking for tools to help them better navigate the market. So whether you’re buying a new home, refinancing, or pulling out equity, this is a great new tool to find the most competitive offers right in your area.

This comes on the heels of a completely upgraded home loans research section, where home owners and prospective buyers hungry for information can leverage tons of mortgage calculators (i.e. ever wonder how much that million dollar home would cost you per month?), see the latest rate trends and learn the ABCs of getting a loan. In addition, users can connect with a local mortgage broker through a new module leveraging our Yahoo! Local search API.

We hope you find these tools useful. Happy house hunting.

Michael Lawless
Sr. Product Manager, Yahoo! Maps

As mentioned in the May 8, 2007 post, the Yahoo! Travel team has been working on a map-on-map feature which enriches our Yahoo! Maps by overlaying independent map images to add more details and context to our base maps.

Now, that same team has further developed the map-on-map feature into the sharable application called MapMixer. This means that anyone who has a map in .jpeg, .gif, or .png format can now upload their map onto a background of Yahoo! Map and mix it, blend it, or customize it. The app gives users tools to adjust transparency, pin-point chosen locations for accurate overlaying and placement, stretch, rotate, zoom, and pan.

If you’re planning a picnic at the park for a group of friends, you can mix your own map of the park’s amenities to pick the best spot and give directions to it. If you’re a tour guide, you can upload images of your route and key sights. If you are showing the past as it relates to the modern-day, add public domain historical maps.

There are endless uses for MapMixer. Take a look at what others have done to customize Yahoo! Maps on the Featured Maps page, and then try it for yourself.

Congrats to Adam Chang, Nimit Maru, and the Yahoo! Travel team who put this great service together.

Michael Lawless - Sr. Product Manager, Yahoo! Maps

As many of you know, Where 2.0 was earlier this week and Digital Earth 5 is next week. Bridging the gap, Yahoo! is hosting WhereCamp, a free ‘unconference’ at the Yahoo! Sunnyvale campus, focusing on all things Map and Geography related. The fun starts Saturday morning at 10am, bring a sleeping bag and spend the weekend if you dare.

Check out more info on Yodel or in Upcoming, or just sign yourself up on the WhereCamp Wiki.

Cheers!

Mike Lawless, Sr Product Manager, Yahoo! Maps

Congratulations to the Yahoo! Real Estate team on their newly updated Home Values center that launched today!  They’ve used the Yahoo! Maps AJAX API as well as the Yahoo! Local search API to create a cool mash-up that provides users with a more comprehensive view of home valuations, community insights, and local connections. 

Searching for a particular home’s value takes you to an expanded results page that features estimated home values from Zillow.com, as well as two newly formed relationships with eppraisal.com and reply.com.  This allows you to get multiple home value estimates from leading providers in order to give users a more complete view on a home’s potential value range.  The real estate team also expanded their Zillow relationship to include home data (such as beds, baths, square feet), sale history and tax info, as well as recently sold comparable homes that are plotted on the map.  Additionally, you can view nearby similar homes for sale from Y! Real Estate to better understand the ‘ask’ side of the valuation process – what are sellers asking for similar homes right now?

To tap into the knowledge of the Yahoo! community, the real estate team joined up with Yahoo! Answers in order to surface home values related questions and answers directly on Yahoo! Real Estate.  You can browse the top home values questions and best answers, view more home values Q&As, search Y! Answers for any question/answer, or ask the community a question of your own.  Using the Yahoo! Local search API, they also surface local valuation professionals to help you connect with top rated real estate appraisers in your area should you choose to get a professional home appraisal. 

Check it out and let us know what you think!
Brian Rothenberg, Product Manager, Yahoo! Real Estate

Today we’re rolling out a brand new Yahoo! Maps that has its own proprietary platform to call home. Bringing the Yahoo! Maps platform in-house gives us numerous advantages, including; global scalability, having more direct control over upgrades, easier integration of new features and user feedback, and a greater ability to improve accuracy.

The advanced functionality introduced with this new platform addresses suggestions, feature requests and bug fixes reported through the yws-maps group. Your ongoing feedback is truly appreciated, as it plays a crucial role in our development cycle.

Some of the front-end improvements you’ll immediately notice when test-driving the improved Yahoo! Maps include:

• Ability to get driving directions within 34 European countries from the U.S. Yahoo! Maps site, including
  • Western Europe - Complete coverage
    Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Great Britain, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Ireland, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, France, and Italy
  • Eastern Europe – Comprehensive coverage
    Albania, Bosnia/Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, The Czech Republic, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Poland, Romania, Russia, Serbia/Montenegro, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Turkey
• A fresh new look and feel to our maps design that is distinctively Yahoo!
• Terrain overlays that provide added dimension and information at the medium and higher zoom levels.
• Neighborhood and building footprints for NYC and San Francisco show greater context at the zoom level. Additional cities are planned for rollout in 2007.
• Search for directions using only a point of interest (e.g., Empire State Building, Eiffel Tower).
• Redesigned interactive print page makes it easier to print and read driving directions.
• For users of our dial-up Maps, we have added many of the most popular features from our broadband version (new maps design, multi-point driving direction, one box address entry, integration of Yahoo! Local data), without sacrificing speed or performance.

Stay tuned for related news over the course of 2007, as we start to work with many of our European teams to introduce new in-country Maps sites in France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK. You can already take a look at Yahoo! Maps India, currently in beta, and up and running on our new platform too.

We hope you enjoy exploring the world on the new Yahoo! Maps, both globally and closer to home.

Jeremy Kreitler, Mike Lawless, Gus Maldonado, Mike Heideman, Rodney Fernandez, Ronny Choie, Jane Jao, and the Yahoo! Maps Team.

UPDATE:

Some people may not realize there are two versions of the site. The Broadband version is more feature rich, the Dialup version is most like our traditional website.

Broadband: http://maps.yahoo.com/broadband/

Dialup: http://maps.yahoo.com/dialup/

Congratulations to the Yahoo! Travel team on their latest update! Big props for the cool new way in which they have used the Yahoo! Maps AJAX API in their new Travel Guides section. This new feature displays more detailed and thematic layers right on the map, a sort of map-on-map. You can use the standard Y! Map tools, such as Pan, Zoom, and view Satellite Imagery, and Y! Travel adds a slider to control the transparency of the new map overlays.

I’ve had a chance to play with it, and think this is a really great way to add context to your trip. The old Roman Forum map is fascinating, especially used with satellite imagery, and details provided for the Grand Canyon and National Mall will certainly help you get around (or decide where to park!). Here is a screen grab from the Roman Forum, but I think you’ll need to check it out for yourself.

Right now this is just a prototype, and they’re working on getting some more maps to put online, but I think the added value of this kind of integration is readily apparent and I’m looking forward to new map overlays as they become available.

Here are some more map overlays in Yahoo! Travel.

Boston Freedom Trail
Yosemite National Park
Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historic Site
Independence Hall
Gettysburg National Military Park
San Diego International Airport
Philadelphia International Airport

Nice work!

Mike Lawless, Sr Product Manager, Yahoo! Maps

PS Yahoo! Travel is hiring! Check out the jobs available.

Have you ever considered moving to a new home and found yourself wondering which neighborhoods would have the best schools for your children? We’ve all asked our real estate agents, friends, or coworkers what they’ve thought about the schools in a particular neighborhood.
Yahoo! Real Estate is happy to announce that you can now search for schools in your area (or the area you plan to move into) and evaluate which schools are the best fit for your kids, based on detailed school information, statistics, and parent reviews. Now that’s useful!
Here’s how to start:
- Go to Yahoo! Real Estate
- Click on the “Research Schools” tab

- Enter the city and state or ZIP code for the area that you’re researching in the search box and click “Search.”
- Now you’ll be able to view this region’s schools on the map and in the list.  You can refine your search by school district, school level (elementary, middle, and high schools), and school type (public, private, and charter schools) on the left bar.

- Click on a school to get parent reviews and information about its enrollment, student/teacher ratio, and contact details.  A neighborhood map shows you the nearest grocery stores, parks, restaurants, or gas stations.

Check it out and let us know what you think!
Brian Rothenberg
Product Manager, Yahoo! Real Estate