共享重组再造 Google地图服务“遍地开花”

作者： CNET科技资讯网 翻译：李海

CNETNews.com.cn 2005-10-21 09:20 AM

CNET科技资讯网 10月21日国际报道 Google地图不那么简单。

你仍然可以用Google地图来进行寻路工作，但是，你为什么不用它来在辛辛那提寻找犹太餐馆，在都柏林寻找交通监视器，或者在美国范围内寻找热温泉呢？或者，在西雅图搜寻提供免费无线互联网接入的咖啡店？或用它来搜索你老板刚刚购买的府邸，然后计算其价值？

一些程序员，多数出于逗乐的目的，已经利用Google地图软件的代码开发出了这些有趣的地图服务。

没有人知道Google地图的衍生服务究竟有多数，因为每天都有新的服务出现。但是，还是有一些网络日子作者对介绍新的 Google地图衍生服务乐此不彼。安大略湖地区的Mike Pegg就是其中一位。几个月前，他创办了“Google地图狂人”的日志网站，专门对这一现象进行追踪。

几乎每一天，他就要罗列好些新的地图服务，从一般的性侵犯发生地图到专业的地图应用，象印度的观鸟地图等等，应有尽有。 Pegg表示：“我就是它们的新闻发布会。”

为什么这些人可以做这些东西出来？答案很简单：因为他们能够这么做。Google已经公布地图生成软件，也就是“应用程序接口”（API）。利用应用程序接口，程序员能够将Google地图和其它数据进行结合，创建出新的地图应用，比如来自Craigslist上的公寓信息，或者美国统计局的人口地理信息等等。编程技术本身也是嫁接性质的，比如“异步JavaScript＋XML”（AJAX）等等。

这种“共享、重组、再造”（Mash-ups）技术并不是网络上的新现象。音乐家有时候也做类似的事情，最著名的要数DJ Danger Mouse将披头士的“White Album”和“Black Album”专辑进行组合再造，推出了全新的“The Grey Album”专辑。在网上，Hopstop.com网站将纽约，波士顿及华盛顿的地铁，巴士以及餐馆，娱乐场所的信息进行了结合。

现在，大公司纷纷鼓励用户进行这样的活动。Amazon已经允许一些人利用其数据库及软件代码去创建新的应用，比如MusicPlasma 等，MusicPlasma可以在地图上显示音乐家们的地理位置所在地。

加州伯克利的一位资深程序员Jef Poskanzer说：“这种东西出现得如此得迅速。现在得情况有点象上个世纪90年代得情况，人人都想在网上做点什么东西出来。”

他说，两个时间的不同点在于，现在的出现东西更加的趋于平民化，原因是制造这种东西本来就非常的容易。他说：“现在仍然需要程序员来动手开发诸如Google地图这样的东西，但工作已经变得异常的简单了，因为你可以到其它网站上复制，粘贴就行了。”

Google已经意识到，自己不可能满足所有用户的特色需求，而共享、重组、再造爱好者们正好可以弥补这种不足。

雅虎也已经开放了它的几项网络服务的应用程序接口，其中包括照片储存网站Flickr，雅虎购物以及雅虎地图。甚至反对代码分享的微软也已经为它的地图服务公布了应用程序接口。但是，Google地图吸引了大量的开发者，它的衍生应用发展也是最快的。

Google本地搜索的产品经理Bret Taylor表示，他们的地图受欢迎的一个主要原因是，Google允许开发者分享其地图广告放置获得的收益。他说：“对开发者，对Google来说，这都有好处。”

一群新创业者也因此应运而生。2004年从斯坦福商学院毕业的Pete Flint和他的同班同学Sami Inkinen就创办了这样一个共享、重组、再造网站，Trulia.com，它能够在Google找到不动产的信息。

然而，Google开放性的地图也存在一些限制。一旦这些共享、重组、再造网站在商业上扩大到一定的规模，Google就会寻求分享其收入。Trulia就是这样，Google的律师已经在和这家公司进行协商，准备签署专利使用合同。Flint表示：“目前，Google 还是免费的，我们正在利用这一特点。”(编辑：孙莹)

A journey to a thousand maps begins with an open code

By Damon Darlin
Published: October 19, 2005, 10:10 PM PDT

A Google map is no longer just a Google map.

You can still search Google Maps to figure out how to get from here to there, but why would you, when you can use it to pinpoint kosher restaurants in Cincinnati, traffic cameras in Dublin, or hot spring spas anywhere in the United States? How about finding coffee shops in Seattle that provide free wireless Internet access? Or would you prefer to locate the McMansion your boss just bought and find how out exactly how much he paid for it?

An army of programmers, most of them doing it just for fun, has grabbed the software code that generates the distinctive maps with their drop-shadowed virtual pushpins, and combined it with other data like the locations of potholes, taco trucks and UFO sightings, and even the sites of murders and muggings.

The result is Google map mash-ups, the latest form of Internet information repackaged for entertainment and, perhaps, profit. For instance, type the official airline flight abbreviation and flight number into the Google search engine and FBOweb.com should come up at the top of the results page. Click on that and you will see a pushpin marking the spot where the plane is. The service also provides a data box listing the speed, altitude and estimated time of arrival of the flight.

Another service, Homepricerecords.com, combines the home sales data with a Google map when you type in an address. (It currently has data only for homes in the San Francisco and Los Angeles areas, but the service promises that Chicago and New York data are coming soon.)

No one really knows how many Google map mash-ups are out there, and it is difficult to hazard a guess on how many new ones are created each day. But that does not stop some bloggers from desperately racing to keep up with the latest. Mike Pegg, an account manager for a software company in Waterloo, Ontario, is one of them. He created Google Maps Mania several months ago in a quixotic attempt to chronicle the phenomenon.

Almost every day he lists a dozen new ones, ranging from the commonplace, like sex offender maps, to the esoteric, like bird sightings in India. "I am their press release," Pegg said.

Why are people doing this? The flippant answer is also the honest one: because they can. Google has revealed the map-generating software, called an API, or application programming interface. And with that API, a programmer can create a mash-up by combining it with other data–like apartment listings on Craigslist, or demographic data from the United States census. The programming technique, itself a mash-up of programs, is also known as AJAX, for Asynchronous JavaScript and XML.

Mash-ups are not a new phenomenon on the Web. Musicians have been doing something similar with other artists’ songs for some time. The best-known example is DJ Danger Mouse’s combination of the Beatles’ "White Album" with Jay-Z’s "Black Album" last year to yield "The Grey Album." Online, Hopstop.com combines subway and bus directions in New York, Boston and Washington with a database of restaurants and entertainment spots.

What is new is that big companies are encouraging users to tap into the information. Amazon has been allowing entrepreneurs to hijack parts of its database and software code to create new applications like MusicPlasma, which graphically displays connections between various musical artists. (Type in the band Weezer and a constellation of other bands, like Nirvana, Nine Inch Nails and Zwan, surround it). The site, recently renamedLiveplasma.com, has created a similar search tool for movies and–no surprise–has a free mapping feature for its habitues.

"It is happening so fast," said Jef Poskanzer, a longtime programmer in Berkeley, Calif., who has created a hot springs map as well as maps of old star forts in Paris, a yacht race and public transportation systems in Paris and the San Francisco Bay Area. "This is like the 1990s, when everyone was creating everything on the Web."

The difference, he said, is that it is now even more democratic because it is so simple to do. "It still takes a programmer to write these kinds of Google maps, but it is easier because you can go to another site and copy the code," he said.

It just got a lot easier. A company started by Marc Andreessen, a co-founder of Netscape, hopes to democratize map mash-ups even more. He created Ning.com, which automates the tools needed to create a Google-based map so almost anyone can make one.

Once you have registered for "developer status," the site copies the code behind a particular Web site you want to imitate, allowing you tweak it and make it your own. In less than five minutes, you could have the Mung Bean Salad Restaurant site up and running.

Google recognized while developing the mapping feature that it would not have the time or the desire to create a host of special interest maps. Yet having numerous mash-ups would serve Google’s strategy of becoming the ubiquitous organizer of the world’s information–hence its openness. The company made it economically and technically feasible for Web sites to present data in map form, said Bret Taylor, product manager for Google Local.

Yahoo has opened the APIs behind several of its Web services, including Flickr, its photo-storing site; Yahoo Shopping; and Yahoo Maps. Even Microsoft, which has been guarded about sharing its code, has released the API for its mapping feature. But Google Maps caught on fastest and now seems to have the greatest number of developers writing for it. (Exactly how many, Google said, is a closely guarded secret.)

Taylor said one reason for Google Maps’ popularity may be that Google allows mash-up creators to share in the revenue from ads that Google sells and places on sites. (In fact, in exchange for allowing use of the maps, Google reserves the right to run ads on the sites in the future.) "It’s great for the developer and it’s great for Google," Taylor said.

A new class of entrepreneur is jumping in as well. Pete Flint, a 2004 graduate of Stanford University’s business school, and a classmate, Sami Inkinen, started a mash-up called Trulia.com, which pinpoints real estate listings on a Google map. Click on a pushpin in a favorite neighborhood and up pops the listings, along with comparables from recent home sales and other nearby properties.

Trulia has posted data only for five California cities, and that data is a bit thin because it uses publicly available sources like newspapers and Web sites, not the Multiple Listing Service, the copyrighted databases belonging to local broker associations. Trulia plans on adding additional layers of information, like census data.

But it is already easy to see the income-earning possibilities, either through advertising or generating highly specific leads for real estate agents. "We very much follow the Google model," Flint said. "It is just a much more focused model of the Google search engine."

Google’s openness to the use of its maps does have limits, though. Once a mash-up turns into a large-scale commercial enterprise, Google looks to share in the revenue. That is happening at Trulia; Google lawyers are trying to negotiate a royalty agreement. "At the moment it is free," Flint said, "and we are taking advantage of it."

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