It warms my heart to see functionality that once was reserved for Big Guys, like AOL, get spread out to everyone. Case in point: Used to be the only place you see embeddable maps was at large sites that had done licensing deals with MapQuest et al. Now, Google is making it possible for anyone to have embeddable maps.
This is great, but read the TOS. By using this, you are bound by Google’s overall TOS, including I imagine its use of any
data your create through using this feature. And you are bound by some interesting Navteq policies (that’s the data provider), which are, well, read the fine print. In short: Don’t mess with them. They are particularly irritated by any hacking with regard to automobiles, thank you very much.
And don’t even think about using this in a commercial manner. Er, but, what is commercial these days? I guess we’ll see.
The strategy is clear. Local is a huge business play for any search driven company. And the more distribution you get, the better. Smart, eh?
This is interesting. How about MSN Live Earth? Do they bind utilizers of their technology like Google?
we’ll see.
Google’s embeddable maps is a great feature but it’s causing problems with TypePad blogs: TypePad’s Embeddable Maps Bug.
That’s a good feature for cars. However, at this time, this feature works only with certain BMW and Mercedes Benz models and requires a navigation subscription from these automobile makers.