The scenario I’ll focus on in this chapter is building a map with dots pointing to a list of places for which you have addresses in the United States. We will look at more sophisticated scenarios later.

Let’s see how much of a Google map you can build without any programming. For the first two years after Google Maps was released, there was no built-­in user functionality to create custom maps. You could use the Google Maps API to create custom maps, but that’s beyond the skill or energy level of most users. Andriy Bidochko built Mapbuilder.net, a free service to let users create Google and Yahoo! Maps with custom markers through an interface that does not require knowledge of JavaScript. In this section, I’ll show you how to use Mapbuilder.net as an easy way to create your own map.

In April 2007, Google introduced the My Maps feature into its online maps. Moreover, Microsoft’s Live Search Maps has similar collection-­making functionality in its maps. That the big players have incorporated functionality that allows its end users to create maps beyond locating a single location or displaying driving directions between two points is validation of the map builder concept. I also describe how to use those functions.

What are some sites built using Mapbuilder.net? Drawing from the list of featured maps,^{[154][155][156][157]}

In addition to Mapbuilder.net, consider using Google’s built-­in My Maps functionality to create a custom Google map, which is documented here:

http://local.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=68480

I created a Google map with the same three bookstores as the previous example. I could either show the map hosted under the Google domain here:

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&ie=UTF8&msa=0&msid=116029721704976049577.0000011345e68993fc0e7&z=14&om=1

or embed it elsewhere by copying and pasting HTML for an embeddable iframe to generate the following, for example:^[165]

http://examples.mashupguide.net/ch13/embedded.GMap.html

There are some major advantages of using My Maps. It’s well integrated into Google Maps with its Search the Map functionality for looking up addresses and the Find Businesses option for locating businesses by name. If a marker comes up in your search results, you can click the Save to My Maps link to save the location on one of your custom maps. In addition, My Maps also lets you edit the markers and draw lines and polygons on your maps. Altogether, Google My Maps goes a long way to letting end users create custom maps (based on Google Maps, of course) without knowing JavaScript.

From a mashup point of view, you should know that you can generate a KML version of one of any of the maps produced by My Maps. The msid parameter of the Google Maps URL holds an identifier for a My Map–produced map (for example, 116029721704976049577.0000011345e68993fc0e7 for the map I produced). A URL of this format:

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?f=q&msa=0&output=kml&msid={my-map-id}

such as the following:

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?f=q&msa=0&output=kml&msid=116029721704976049577.0000011345e68993fc0e7

returns a KML version of the map. As I describe in greater detail later in this chapter, KML (an XML vocabulary for displaying geospatial information) lets you easily parse details of the map.

Yahoo! Local makes it easy to make collections of places, but it does not allow easy mapping of those places. For instance, I assembled a collection of bookstores around Berkeley,^[166]

Getting XML Out of Yahoo! Local via getCollection

We will use the getCollection method of the Yahoo! Local web service, which “enables you to get detailed information about a collection created with Yahoo! Local collections, through a REST-­like API.”^[167]

The base URL is as follows:

http://collections.local.yahooapis.com/LocalSearchService/V1/getCollection

There are four parameters, as shown in Table 13-1.

Table 13.1. getCollection Parameters

Parameter	Description of Parameter	Value of the Parameter
appid	Application ID	raymondyee.net
collection_id	ID of the collection to be retrieved	1000014156
output	Output type	Unspecified, thus returning the default of XML
callback	Callback function	Unspecified

In other words, we can formulate the following query:

http://collections.local.yahooapis.com/LocalSearchService/V1/getCollection?appid={app-id}&collection_id=1000014156

	Tip
	You can get your Yahoo! addid at https://developer.yahoo.com/wsregapp/index.php.

This request returns the code shown in Listing 13-1.

Example 13.1. Listing 13-1.XML for a Collection from Yahoo! Local

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<Result id="1000014156" xmlns="urn:yahoo:travel" 
        xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" 
        xsi:schemaLocation="unknown">
  <Title>bookstores around Berkeley</Title>
  <Description>some of my favorite bookstores around Berkeley.</Description>
  <CreatedTime>2006-10-24 13:29:40</CreatedTime>
  <Username>Raymond Yee</Username>
  <CommentCount>0</CommentCount>
  <Item>
    <Address>
      <Address1>2476 Telegraph Ave</Address1>
      <Address2 />
      <City>Berkeley</City>
      <State>CA</State>
      <PostalCode>94704</PostalCode>
    </Address>
    <id>21518795</id>
    <Title>Moe&apos;s Books</Title>
    <CreatedTime>2006-10-24 13:29:41</CreatedTime>
    <Description>
      * The Bay Area&apos;s Largest Selection of Used Scholarly Books
    </Description>
    <Url>
http://local.yahoo.com/details?id=21518795&amp;stx=&amp;csz=Berkeley+CA&amp;ed=xoDOxa160SyYoswS6OvDhQk64pj4Q8RHG5PQhcSqprzxVT6mDHMezwfQ2U244pugG4LDSdibA78iSw--
    </Url>
    <type>Retail Shopping</type>
    <Category>Used &amp; Rare Bookstores</Category>
    <Photo />
    <Tag />
    <Phone>(510) 849-2087</Phone>
  </Item>
  <Item>
    <Address>
      <Address1>1730 4th St</Address1>
      <Address2 />
      <City>Berkeley</City>
      <State>CA</State>
      <PostalCode>94710</PostalCode>
    </Address>
    <id>21512172</id>
    <Title>Cody&apos;s Books</Title>
    <CreatedTime>2006-10-24 14:07:28</CreatedTime>
    <Description />
    <Url>
http://local.yahoo.com/details?id=21512172&amp;stx=&amp;csz=Berkeley+CA&amp;ed=3uqWba160SzFEqntYzu46yunejqBEmJnCBEi_I7QbD68sZTEVRYl4WkOGEf6alVIaEB3</Url>
    <type>Retail Shopping</type>
    <Category>Bookstores</Category>
    <Photo />
    <Tag />
    <Phone>(510) 559-9500</Phone>
  </Item>
  <Item>
    <Address>
      <Address1>6060 El Cerrito Plz</Address1>
      <Address2 />
      <City>El Cerrito</City>
      <State>CA</State>
      <PostalCode>94530</PostalCode>
    </Address>
    <id>21414999</id>
    <Title>Barnes &amp; Noble Booksellers</Title>
    <CreatedTime>2006-10-24 14:07:56</CreatedTime>
    <Description />
    <Url>
http://local.yahoo.com/details?id=21414999&amp;stx=&amp;csz=El+Cerrito+CA&amp;ed=Fo51gq160Sy24fPx_u7IvyZen3kxQq5wR9ZOi_Aos2J.pPlJ75D_th3K2MHtNCWF_V5k_n0q62ssy3I-
    </Url>
    <type>Retail Shopping</type>
    <Category>Bookstores</Category>
    <Photo />
    <Tag />
    <Phone>(510) 524-0087</Phone>
  </Item>
</Result>
               

Our goal is to convert the XML data from Listing 13-1 into CSV. There are various techniques you could consider to do this. One way is to write a PHP script that takes a collection ID and outputs CSV, as shown in Listing 13-2.^[168]

<?php

function getResource($url){
  $chandle = curl_init();
  curl_setopt($chandle, CURLOPT_URL, $url);
  curl_setopt($chandle, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
  $result = curl_exec($chandle);
  curl_close($chandle);
  return $result;
}

// get a collection_id
//default to my own
  $cid  = isset($_REQUEST['cid']) ? $_REQUEST['cid'] : "1000014156";  

  $url = 
    "http://collections.local.yahooapis.com/LocalSearchService/V1/getCollection?appid=[app-id]&collection_id=". urlencode($cid);
  $feed = getResource($url);
  $xml = simplexml_load_string($feed);

  //header("Content-Type:text/csv");
  $out = fopen('php://output', 'w');
  
  $header = array("Caption","Street Address","City","State","Zip");
  fputcsv($out, $header);  
  
   foreach ($xml->Item as $item) {
    $caption = $item->Title;
    $street_address = $item->Address->Address1;
    $city = $item->Address->City;
    $state = $item->Address->State;
    $zip = $item->Address->PostalCode;
    fputcsv($out, array($caption,$street_address,$city,$state,$zip)); 
  }

    fclose($out);
?>
            

http://examples.mashupguide.net/ch13/yahooCollectionToCSV.php?cid=1000014156

To try this, we can go to our collections here:

http://local.yahoo.com/userreviews?target=p0TJ1rUjf64lpQPwpZGZmXVTOyaM&rvwtype=COLLECTION

and pull out collection ID numbers to feed to the script to generate the CSV:

Caption,"Street Address",City,State,Zip
"Moe's Books","2476 Telegraph Ave",Berkeley,CA,94704
"Cody's Books","1730 4th St",Berkeley,CA,94710
"Barnes & Noble Booksellers","6060 El Cerrito Plz","El Cerrito",CA,94530
          

We can then take the CSV and feed it to Mapbuilder.net to create our map.

	Note
	You might say that writing such a script gets you only CSV and you still have to manually create a map with Mapbuilder.net—and you’re right. Later, we’ll transform this collection into formats that are easier to work with in terms of generating maps.

For Microsoft’s Live Search Maps (http://local.live.com), powered by Microsoft’s Virtual Earth, the story is a bit more complicated. Live Search Maps has excellent collection-­building facilities. I was surprised how easy it was to look up bookstores and save them to collections and then to see those bookstores on the map all within the Microsoft map environment. If you make a collection public, anyone can access it here:

http://maps.live.com/?v=2&cid={collection-id}&encType=1

For example:

http://maps.live.com/?v=2&cid=74B8FFD299EDD840!106&encType=1

Moreover, you are able to get a GeoRSS representation of a Live Search Maps collection here:

http://maps.live.com/GeoCommunity.aspx?action=retrieverss&mkt=en-us&cid={collection-id}

As you will see later in the chapter, GeoRSS is an XML vocabulary for embedding geographic information into RSS and Atom feeds. For a preview of what GeoRSS is, you can look at the following URL, which is shown in Listing 13-3.^[169]

http://maps.live.com/GeoCommunity.aspx?action=retrieverss&mkt=en-us&cid=74B8FFD299EDD840!10

<rss version="2.0" xmlns:georss="http://www.georss.org/georss"
  xmlns:gml="http://www.opengis.net/gml" 
  xmlns:Cml2GeoRssHelper="urn:Cml2GeoRssHelper">
  <channel>
    <title>Bookstores around Berkeley</title>
    <description>An example for mashupguide.net</description>
    <link>http://local.live.com/?v=2&amp;cid=74B8FFD299EDD840!106</link>
    <pubDate>Wed, 29 Aug 2007 23:32:51 GMT</pubDate>
    <item>
      <title>Moe's Books</title>
      <link>http://local.live.com/?v=2&amp;cid=74B8FFD299EDD840!106</link>
      <guid>74B8FFD299EDD840!128</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 29 Aug 2007 23:32:18 GMT</pubDate>
      <description>
      &lt;div style="padding:4px;"&gt; 2476 Telegraph Ave, Berkeley, CA  
      &lt;/div&gt; &lt;br/&gt;
  </description>
      <georss:point>37.865523 -122.258492</georss:point>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Barnes &amp; Noble Booksellers</title>
      <link>http://local.live.com/?v=2&amp;cid=74B8FFD299EDD840!106</link>
      <guid>74B8FFD299EDD840!112</guid>
      <pubDate>Sat, 06 Jan 2007 16:47:10 GMT</pubDate>
      <description>
      &lt;div style="padding:4px;"&gt; 6060 El Cerrito Plz, El Cerrito, CA 
      &lt;/div&gt; &lt;br/&gt;
  </description>
      <georss:point>37.899299 -122.300926</georss:point>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Cody's Books</title>
      <link>http://local.live.com/?v=2&amp;cid=74B8FFD299EDD840!106</link>
      <guid>74B8FFD299EDD840!107</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 25 Oct 2006 01:27:14 GMT</pubDate>
      <description>
      &lt;div style="padding:4px;"&gt; 1730 4th St, Berkeley, CA 94710 
      &lt;/div&gt; &lt;br/&gt;
  </description>
      <georss:point>37.870975 -122.301021</georss:point>
    </item>
  </channel>
</rss>
            

Notice that each of the three bookstores is now associated with a georss:point element containing the latitude and longitude of the place (georss corresponds to the http://www.georss.org/georss namespace). For example, the element for Moe’s Books is as follows:

<georss:point>37.865523 -122.258492</georss:point>

Notice a crucial difference between the GeoRSS originating from Live Search Maps and the XML of Yahoo! Local: the former contains the latitude and longitude of the bookstores, whereas the latter contains the addresses. We’ll return to studying the implications of these differences later in the chapter.

What can you conclude from these exercises? Mapbuilder.net is not so easy to use if you want to create a lot of markers but you don’t already have those addresses laid out as CSV-­formatted data. It would be nice to use a service like Yahoo! Local to pull up addresses and then pass the data into Mapbuilder.net. Live.local.com is surprisingly easy to use for building maps, but it’s not easy to extract address information to create maps on competing map services. Google My Maps allows you to search for businesses and make maps of those results if you are content to make a Google map based on Google business data. Remember, however, that you can get a representation of the maps you make with Google My Maps as KML, which you can reuse elsewhere.