tinymap.net appears to have found a small niche, and is getting a lot more hits than I expected. Over a few nights it has gained
- Passwords for viewing/deleting
- Changable waypoint color line
- Export to KML
- YUI served directly from Yahoo (hopefully faster)
- Images served directly from Amazon S3 (hopefully faster)
- Hopefully a slowly improving UI
It is kind of strange and cool that the whole thing hangs together with a mash-up of Google, Yahoo and Amazon services. I considered using Amazon S3 to actually store the map database, but it isn't big enough yet, and I think latency would be an issue.
I have sitemaps that point to KML for public maps, and I was hoping that by pinging Google with the address they would index the KML with the page, and Adsense would serve more relevant, localised ads. So far, despite my pings, Google has not gone for any of the sitemaps -- I think you need to have them under your "webmaster tools" or something. If any Googlers are listening integrating Adsense with KML is going to be a killer app.
Some highlight links
- Mentioned on Google Maps API Official Blog
- Mentioned on Google Maps Mania
- Some guys mention it on a podcast
I still have some more ideas, but I don't want to clutter it and loose the KISS approach I desired from the start. It sure is a lot of fun, even if Javascript is the most un-debuggable language ever invented.