Earthware Blog

Having your property listed on a online map has become an essential part of the property marketing process so its little surprise really that Google have joined the party launching their latest addition to Google Maps in the UK – property listings. Any property portal, estate agent or even individual seller/landlord can list their property as for sale or for rent to be displayed on the property maps when a search matches the properties specification.

Listing properties on the map is free (Google have funded the new functionality through advertising placed around the maps) and it is this fact has caused a lot of unrest with the UK’s major property portals such as RightMove, who provide a similar property listings maps but which agents have to pay to advertise on. However, other portals including Zoopla, Zoomf, and Property Pal have chosen to jump on board with this latest free online marketing tool and have formed partnerships with Google to list their properties on the maps. Many other independent estate agents have also taken advantage of the functionality with Google now saying that within 24 hours of the maps being live they have hundreds of thousands of properties listed.

Home buyers and renters can use the maps search functionality, which can be turned on or off by selecting ‘properties’ found under the ‘more’ button at the top of the maps, to find properties to suit their needs. Users can search by city/locality by moving the map and zooming in, or by price range, type of property (detached, semi detached or townhouse/unit), number of bedrooms and number of bathrooms using the tick boxes to the left of the map.

The ideal scenario for any buyer or renter is to only need to look in one place in order to see all (or at least the vast majority of) available properties. It is exactly this position that the portals are fighting to become, with RightMove winning that fight in the residential property market. Google’s move into the property market will only make maintaining their positions as the top property portal list more difficult – something they are understandably nervous about. As for the user – maybe it’s a good thing. It might just force all the portals to improve the service they offer in order to differentiate themselves and retain custom.

If you are interested in using property mapping in your website to market available properties we can help. Contact us on 0845 642 9880 or email info@earthware.co.uk

This week has seen a further development in global web based mapping technology with Google’s announcement that it has augmented Google Earth into Google Maps, creating a 3D rendering of certain locations when used with a supported browser.

This update to Google Maps, called Earth View, enables users to view 3D images of a number of the world’s most iconic places. In the UK, these include the Houses of Parliament in London, Stonehenge and even the Lake District.

Go to Google Maps and click the ‘New!’ link in the top right-hand corner and then enable “Aerial Imagery” and click on “save changes”. Then select one of the listed examples, sit back and enjoy!

Commenting on the Google’s Lat Long blog, Google Product Manager, Peter Birch, wrote:

"Earth View offers a true three-dimensional perspective, which lets you experience mountains in full detail, 3D buildings and first-person dives beneath the ocean. The motion is fluid, and you can see the world from any viewpoint".

Coming five years after Google Earth was launched, Earth View is available through the installation of a browser plug-in it originally issued in 2008, enabling dramatic detailing using the Google Earth fly-through interface.

The Grand Canyon, as viewed with Earth View in Google Maps.

San Francisco is one area where 3D perspective of an urban view is available in real detail.

(Credit: screenshots by Stephen Shankland/CNET)

Microsoft is currently working on its own 3D view of the world by enhancing its Bird’s Eye perspective in Bing Maps using the Silverlight plug-in.

Brian, Earthware’s Technical Director believes, “It is great to see these premium beta features make it into the consumer site offering some real competition to Bing’s 3D maps”.

Please feel free to contact Earthware if you are looking to explore how Google Maps, or any other web based interactive mapping, can help your business.

For the past thirty years or more, the travel industry has relied upon the trusty printed brochure to wet our appetites for holidays at home and abroad. We’ve become accustomed to the idea of thumbing through acres of paper and booking our escape to the sun based on fuzzy photographs and ‘artist’s impressions’. I wonder exactly how many holidaymakers have uttered those immortal words, “it didn’t look like that in the brochure?” during this time.

However, thanks to the massive advances made in web based mapping technology, this is all set to change. Applications such as Bing Maps World Tour, which uses Microsoft’s Silverlight technology and the Bing Maps mapping API, and the European Environment Agency’s Eye on the Earth website, which is built on the Windows Azure platform and Google Earth mapping are great examples of how the technology has revolutionised the way web users experience online mapping imagery. These mapping technologies have also paved the way for the travel sector to re-think how it can use the internet to present consumers with complete travel information in one place, e.g. embedded into an online travel map, to make finding and booking a holiday an enjoyable, easy experience.

Let’s take this one step further. Imagine popping into your local travel agent, or even sitting at home, and being able to interact with the screen to research and book your next holiday. The kind of technology that would enable you to do this was featured in the 2002 Hollywood movie, Minority Report. However, it’s no longer in the realm of science fiction thanks to the introduction of Microsoft Surface. Blend this technology with 3D street level mapping which is now available with Microsoft’s Streetside and Google’s Streetview and we’ve opened the door to a whole new perspective of what we can expect in the not too distant future.

95% of the UK road network has now been plotted in Google Streetview, an incredible logistical exercise on its own. You may even have seen one of the hundreds of specially rigged ‘Google Cars’ driving around capturing the imagery over the last 18 months but don’t worry, all faces and vehicle registrations have been disguised to comply with privacy laws!

This imagery means tourists and those holidaying at home can get an incredible amount of destination information, as well as being able to plan an itinerary based on the surrounding area and distances to attractions, for example, through just one application. Granted, you will only get an aerial or bird’s eye (if the mapping platform used is Microsoft’s Bing Maps) view of your holiday cottage if it’s down a private farm track (at the moment) but how about ‘walking’ around the nearest village or town? No problem.

For those of you who’d like to find out more about Bing Maps in particular, you can visit and join the Bing Maps User Group which was co-founded by Earthware’s Technical Director, Brian Norman. At one recent session, the group heard from Jim Lynn from BBC Vision, who presented “Adventures in Mapping” to give more of a taste of what we could see in the future.

Earthware’s development team is at the forefront of groundbreaking online mapping technology and new applications and is working in a number of industry sectors keen to embrace the power of interactive mapping technology to bring their business propositions to life through the internet.

Not only that, in these environmentally conscious times, it’s comforting to know this technology could help the travel industry take a huge step forward in reducing the thousands of tons of paper it uses each year.

To find out more about using Silverlight or Windows Azure technologies or the Bing Maps or Google Maps online mapping to communicate your business, please contact us.

Within hours of Google launching Google Street View imagery covering 99% of UK roads, Earthware has released their first implementation of the new imagery in commercial property portal NovaLoca.com.

The Google Street View imagery in NovaLoca.com allows users to view commercial property in the major UK cities and in smaller towns and villages right across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The user now gets an even better impression of what a property being advertised on the site is like, without having to visit it in person, making finding commercial property easier than it has ever been before.

Earthware and NovaLoca have been working together for a long time to keep NovaLoca’s property mapping well ahead of the competition. In October 2008 we implemented the very first UK street side imagery in NovaLoca’s maps for commercial property in London before Google released any of their Street View imagery in the UK. This latest addition means that Street View imagery is now a standard function of the property maps where ever you are looking for commercial property in the UK. Yet again, this means NovaLoca have beaten all their competitors by becoming the first UK commercial property website to be using this technology.

If you want to know how you can use online mapping and Google Street View in your website please contact Earthware on 0845 642 9880.

Google Maps have today launched Google StreetView imagery for the entire UK and we mean the entire UK!  Nearly a quarter of a million roads across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are now available to ‘walk’ down from your computer screen. The 360 degree pictures mean you can have a good look around as you travel down the street, and you can deep zoom into the images to see the detail (although faces and registration plates are blurred out in accordance to the privacy protection rules).

But Google have been even busier than that: they have also released Google Street View imagery covering the majority of France, Italy and Spain too.

Although Google Street View has been available in 25 major cities in the UK since March 2009, to now have Street View right across the UK is a phenomenal achievement from the Google Maps team and will be changing the way people use online maps to display geographical information in interactive maps. The StreetView maps can be embedded into any website to help businesses display their location and any geographical information on a map, immediately we see major benefits from property mapping and travel mapping.

For anyone that’s interested you can now see where all the Earthware fun happens:
View Larger Map

If you are interested in how you can use Google Maps and Google Street View to display your information then contact Earthware on 0845 642 9880.

For the fourth blog post in our series comparing the two leading AJAX mapping APIs we are looking at what support is available for each API both officially by the respective companies and unofficially from the developer community. Again we are highlighting significant differences between the APIs using green highlighting.

UPDATES: We have added some extra details on support from feedback we have received

Official Developer Support

Obviously one of the most important aspects to compare when choosing any API is how well it is documented and the quality and availability of examples. There is nothing worse than trying to wade through an API playing “guess what this bit does” so having well written, up to date documentation and examples is key to any developers success.

Google Maps

• Official documentation and reference available for both version 2 and 3 APIs
  (see http://code.google.com/apis/maps/documentation/)
• Official example code for both version 2 and 3 APIs with over 46 examples
  (see http://code.google.com/apis/maps/documentation/examples/index.html)
• For a “code playground” allowing you to edit the examples for yourself and get a real feel of what using the API is like
  (see http://code.google.com/apis/ajax/playground/?exp=maps#map_simple)
• Case studies available (http://maps.google.com/help/maps/casestudies/)
• Demo gallery of third party examples available
  (http://code.google.com/apis/maps/documentation/demogallery.html)
• A list of known issues including official responses and ability to add issues
  (see http://code.google.com/p/gmaps-api-issues/issues/list)
• A change log showing recent code updates
  (see http://code.google.com/p/gmaps-api-issues/wiki/JavascriptMapsAPIChangelog)
• An official blog updating you with the latest news and releases
  (see http://googlegeodevelopers.blogspot.com/)
• There are official “Google developer days” in a few places worldwide every year that have some sessions on Google maps and the large Google IO conference in San Francisco every year. We are not aware of any Google Maps specific events or official webcasts other than the already mentioned events.
• If you are a commercial user there is a dedicated support website for answering your issues directly with response within 24 business hours, however “Google reserves the sole right to determine whether to respond to all other support issues, such as implementation assistance, underlying errors in the map data, and cases where address locations are incorrect or missing.” so you may not even get a response to some issues. Support only processes support requests made through the support website during hours of operation: 9AM-6PM Pacific Time Mon-Fri (9 hours).

Google has the basic documentation covered and a few nice things that make it unique like the change log and issues log. One nice difference is that almost all of Google’s official support information collected together on one website. Google also have a few events for developers but don’t appear them more than once a year and there doesn’t appear to be any sort of partner support network. The support however does concern us a little in that you may not get any response to your issues, we do not know how this actually works in reality.

Bing Maps

• Official documentation and reference, also available as offline help file
  (see http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb429619.aspx)
• Official example code
  (see http://www.microsoft.com/maps/isdk/ajax/)
• Case studies available
  (see http://www.microsoft.com/maps/gallery/)
• Demo of third party examples available
  (see http://www.microsoft.com/maps/gallery/)
• An official blog updating you with the latest news and releases
  (see http://www.bing.com/community/blogs/maps/)
• Official imagery release information application (to be completely open it was created by Earthware for Microsoft) see http://bingmapsupdates.cloudapp.net/
• There are official events 2-3 times a year for developers and partners as well as webcasts around once a month keeping partners up to date
  
• There is a well established Bing Maps partner network worldwide which is part of the larger Microsoft partner program. Selected partners are involved in quarterly webcasts with the Bing Maps team to discuss issues and upcoming releases.
• If you are a commercial user there are dedicated support teams worldwide for answering your issues directly, all support enquiries of any nature will be responded to (confirmed with Microsoft 21/01/10). Bing Maps paid customers have access to email and phone support 8AM-9PM Eastern Time, Mon-Fri (13 hours) – the entire USA business day, coast to coast; for service outages, they have access to 24/7 telephone support with 1-hour callback outside of normal business hours. The European support runs from 8am to 4pm GMT

Bing again has the basic covered well, and an unique imagery release information application but it is missing a regular change log and there is no official issues log. One area Bing Maps stands out in is the events and partner network which is something Google need to work on to help support more than just developers.

Developer Community

Often official support for a product is great, but a true community built around an API can make all the difference.

Google Maps

• Has a well used forum / group for posting and answering questions. The majority of support is offered by other developers but there are some official announcements by Google employees
  (see http://groups.google.com/group/google-maps-api/)
• Has a large number of open source projects adding functionality to the core mapping, most notably the Gmaps utility library which is officially recommended by Google over code actual offered by the core Google maps v2 API.
  
• There have been at least 10 books published specifically about Google Maps
  
• Google maps has a much larger presence in the general web community with a large number of articles, blog posts and tutorials for various aspects and uses of Google maps

Google has a large user community due to its free use popularity with a lot of books to choose from, however be careful as books on APIs become old very fast.

Bing Maps

• Has a well used forum for posting and answering questions. The vast majority of support is offered by other developers and very occasionally by the Bing Maps team.
• Has a smaller number of open source projects mostly focusing around asp.net / silverlight / wpf controls or using Bing Maps in interesting ways rather than adding functionality to the core mapping product (with the notable exceptions of vejs and the virtual earth toolkit)
  
• Bing maps now has at least one dedicated user group (co-founded by Earthware’s Brian Norman)
  
• We are only aware of one soon to be published book about Bing Maps by Nicolas Boonaert which is in French

Bing Maps has a smaller but just as dedicated user community. It’s Earthware’s opinion that there may be less open source projects adding to the core functionality (like Google’s GMaps Utility Library) because Bing Maps has a lot more of these kind of utilities already included in its core mapping API (hence its larger file size).

Conclusions

Both Google Maps and Bing Maps have the basic developer documentation and support sorted, although we find Bing Maps documentation a little easier to read and navigate but that’s only a personal preference.

Google Maps stands out in its development openness by having an issues log and updates log. Bing Maps however really shines when it comes to official partner communication and official events. Also it’s interesting to see Google recommending the use of open source projects rather than using some aspects of the core mapping API.

Finally Google Maps undoubtedly has a larger user community with more articles, books and open source projects than Bing. We can see this difference is starting to balance out a little since Bing Maps rebranded from Virtual Earth and with the new similar free licensing agreement introduced last month.

For the third blog post in our series comparing Google Maps and Bing Maps we are focusing on the size of download users require to use these platforms and the speed which the core code and map imagery to delivered.

Download size

Both mapping platforms use a large amount of javascript and css that is required to get the actual base mapping working before the user even gets to the code you as a developer write for your application. Below you can see a comparison of the download size in kb (when gzipped) required for each platform, slightly complicated by the fact Google Maps currently have two current APIs ver 2 and ver 3 (as ver 3 still has features missing that are available in ver 2).

As you can see Bing Map’s javascript is considerably larger. This is, in our opinion, due to Bing Maps having a lot more of its features built into the main javascript file (e.g. client side clustering, drag-zoom, labelled markers, speed optimized marker addition) rather than in optional community based js files like Google’s GMap Utility Library.

We have deliberately not compared (or included in our calculations above) the image tiles used to show the actual maps in both api’s as both use the same formats for these and they are entirely dependent on the imagery at each location.

Delivery speeds

As the vast majority of data used in your mapping applications is the image tiles used to create the map the speed which these image files are delivered to your users worldwide is arguably more important than the initial javascript download size. For example one 256×256 pixel square road map tile is typically ~20kb so these very quickly become the biggest data download for your application.

Bing Maps have openly discussed their recent implementation of a Content Delivery Network (CDN) for Bing Maps which means all the Bing Maps files are delivered by a network of servers worldwide and will be delivered by the server closest to your users therefore increasing the delivery speeds. We cannot find any official word from Google about whether Google Maps is doing the same but we would be surprised if they are not.

Help us test delivery speeds

As we promised to try and use objective measurements when comparing mapping API’s we need your help to test delivery speeds all over the world. If you can add your location and the speed of delivery you get from both Google Maps and Bing Maps (see how to do this below) to the comments on this article we will update the article and add the results for everyone to see. Obviously the delivery speed will vary on your connection speed but we will still be able to compare the difference between loading a Google Maps tile and loading a Bing Maps tile on the same connection.

How to test delivery speeds

To take part in this experiment you will need to download Firefox and the Firebug plug-in. Follow the steps below and post your location and results in the comments below.

1. Open a new browser tab and then open firebug (tools->firebug->open firebug)
2. Click on the “Net” tab in firebug
3. Load the following url in the tab:
   http://mt1.google.com/vt/v=ap.115&x=233&y=154&z=8
4. You should see a graph like the one below showing you the filesize (16kb) and how long it took to load (191ms in our case).

   As suggested by readers in the comments we recommend you take the average time taken of at least three tests, for each test ensure you hold down the SHIFT key and click Firefox’s refresh button so that it does not read the tile from the browser cache (ensure firebug does not say 16kb from cache).
   

   

5. Now to get the download speed in kb/s simply divide the filesize (16kb) by the download time then multiple by 1000, giving in our example a download speed of: (16 / 191) * 1000 = 83.7 kb/s
   
6. Now repeat for this Bing url:
   http://ecn.t3.tiles.virtualearth.net/tiles/r0231113.png?g=392
   
7. Finally post your results and location below.

Conclusions

We will have to wait until we have a number of results in from around the world until we can draw some useful conclusions to this blog post. Until then we can say if initial filesize is really important to your users (for example those on mobile connections) then you may wish to look at the Google Maps ver 3, however initial file size is far from the whole picture so it would be best to wait to see the results of the delivery speed tests before reading much more into this.

For our blog series on comparing the two mapping developer API’s we thought we should start with one of the most important aspects, licensing. This is going to be tricky to compare as we are not allowed to publish the exact commercial pricing for either platform. We will try and give as much information as we can to still be a useful and valid comparison.

Licensing is a tricky subject and the terms for each API are written in pure legalese. We will try to identify and compare the key points using our understanding of each licensing agreement.

When comparing the APIs we will highlight key differences with green highlighting.

UPDATED: We have updated some information about the differences in SLA, thanks for the feedback readers

Free Usage

Often the first question asked is “can we use them for free”, well since November the quick answer for both platforms is yes, as long as you don’t use too much.

Google Maps

• free for use on “public facing” websites (i.e. a site that doesn’t charge for access to the maps). There is limit on how many map loads you can use but its not published and said to be at Google’s discretion
• can be used for commercial usage (where the site makes money)
• free on the understanding advertising may be shown on your map (with 90 days notice)
• free on the understanding any data you display on the maps, Google has the right to re-use in marketing etc as shown in the terms; “you give Google a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute Your Content through the Service and as search results through Google Services.”
• No Service Level Agreement – if it goes offline you have no comeback
• The terms of the agreement can change at any time without warning, meaning it might not be free tomorrow
• Gives you access to both the ajax mapping api and mapping related web services
• Cannot be used for real time navigation (sat-nav) due to 3rd party license agreements
• Can we used for asset tracking but only for a service that is free to end users

Bing Maps

• Free for use on “public facing” websites for up to 125,000 map page loads per year or 500,000 map transactions (1 transaction is 8 map 256 pixel square map tiles or one address lookup) per annum
• Free to use if you can prove that you are a not for profit organisation or educational organisation (we would strongly suggest you check the terms and conditions to ensure that your organisation qualifies)
• can be used for commercial usage (where the site makes money)
• No Service Level Agreement – if it goes offline you have no comeback
• The terms of the agreement can change at any time without warning, meaning it might not be free tomorrow
• Gives you access to both the ajax mapping api and mapping related web services
• Any data you “submit” to bing maps you give a license to Microsoft to re-use, however this does not cover data etc hosted by yourself or a thrid party, only data hosted by Microsoft on your behalf.
• free on the understanding advertising or search box may be shown on your map at some point in the future
• Does not include Bings “birds eye imagery” due to the licensing agreement between Microsoft and its birds eye imagery suppliers
• Cannot be used at all for fleet or asset tracking without a commercial license (see below)
• Cannot be used for real time navigation (sat-nav) due to 3rd party license agreements

Commercial Licensing

If you want to use the maps more than is offered by the free licensing, or want to use a feature no available under the free license you will need to pay for a license. Although we cannot give the pricing details for either API we can compare a few features and comment generally about how the licensing works.. Should you wish to enquire about commercial usage in the UK you may want to contact Grey Matter who organize licensing for Microsoft in the UK (or call us but we generally offer advice and are not a licensing reseller).

One important question often asked is does commercial licensing mean you get better imagery or a faster service than the free offerings? For both API’s the answer is no, whether free or commercial you are using the exact same service.

Google Maps

• Covered by an uptime Service Level Agreement (SLA) but only of the map and imagery, not the geocoding services etc
• Available on a sliding price scale with each level including a maximum number of map page loads per annum for a fixed cost
• Available for use on private websites
• Guaranteed no adverts added to the maps without your permission

Bing Maps

• Covered by an uptime Service Level Agreement (SLA) for all services
• Lots of ways of licensing including pricing scale for maximum number of map page loads (same as Google), PayAsYouGo useful for sites with initially unknown usage or very low volume sites.
• From Earthware’s experience the entry price for maximum map page load bundles is considerably lower for Bing than Google
• Guaranteed no adverts added to the maps without your permission

Conclusion

“Enough waffling” I here you cry “just tell us which ones better!”. As we said in our introduction to this series we will not be declaring a winner for each comparison we will leave that up to you.

So in conclusion both API’s now have very similar free offering, although Google’s has no published usage limits so if you want to use it free and have over 125,000 map transactions a year then you might want to consider using Google over Bing however there is no clear guidelines from Google on what their free limit actually is. On the commercial side if you are looking for a lot of flexibility to met your specific projects licensing requirements then give Bing Maps a try as they appear to be more flexible.

One last observation is to be careful when using the free licensing. Free is unlikely to be free forever without some changes. Google have a world leading advertising network but so far have not tried too hard to make advertising really work on all their mapping platforms, however its anyone’s guess how long that will last, Bing maps has never really tried any map advertising at all, but that doesn’t mean they won’t in future. Either way if you are planning a business model for your site that relies on free mapping for the medium to long term be very careful as we have no doubt free won’t be free forever (or at least not as it is currently).

You can check out all the licensing information at the following links:

• Google maps terms
• Google maps premier terms
• Bing maps terms

Over the last few months there has been a large increase in the interest in mapping API’s for developers to use on their own websites. The two major worldwide players in this battle are Google with their Google Maps API and Microsoft with their Bing Maps API (formally Virtual Earth). We often read articles and tweets from people claiming that one or the other is clearly better, and we are tired of reading one-sided ill-informed debate on these comparison issues.

So today we start a new blog series on comparing the two mapping APIs as objectively as possible and hopefully with a number of you readers contributing your own information and opinions. Let’s start by openly saying that although here at Earthware we are API agnostic and try to use the best API for each individual project. However, mainly due to a focus on property in the UK where Bird’s Eye is often a clear differentiator in deciding on the best API, we definitely have more experience and involvement in the Bing Maps API.

We will try and evaluate various parts of the mapping APIs on mostly objective measures with some clearly marked opinions from us and you the reader (via comments). We WILL NOT be declaring an overall winner because it’s neither possible nor helpful to do so (we believe the right API depends on a lot of variables specific to each client and project), we will leave that up to you.

What will we be comparing?

Just so it’s clear from the outset, we will be comparing:

1. The ajax / javascript developer APIs for Google Maps and Bing Maps
2. Each platforms’ overall performance
3. Developer support with documentation and communities
4. Licensing
5. The state of the platforms right now (Jan 2010) not their historical features and performance

What we won’t be comparing:

1. Google Earth or Bing Maps 3d
2. The main Google maps or Bing maps websites (these are developer APIs)
3. Aerial coverage in one location or during one time period (more on that later)
4. Unreleased or road-mapped features

How to get involved

We are really keen to get you our readers involved and to collect and add your ideas, information and informed opinions to the debate. If you have any feedback you wish to make, or ideas for what you’d like to see compared please add your comments below.