Google Maps + Yahoo! Traffic Back Online

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Jun 14
2005

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Google Maps + Yahoo! Traffic Back Online

A month or so, the google maps/yahoo-traffic mashup site went dark, as Yahoo! removed lat/long data from their RSS feeds. The developer, Grg Woo Ouais, rebuilt the site with data from traffic.com, but the takedown was still disappointing.

I mentioned the problem to David Filo and Jerry Yang at D (they weren't aware of the takedown), and got their support for the general idea of new applications built by combining data services from multiple web sites. I also talked to Paul Levine, the General Manager of Yahoo! Local, about the problem. Paul immediately committed to look into it. So I was delighted to hear from Paul today by email:

I wanted to let you know that the Yahoo traffic mashup is back. Lat/long is back in our RSS feed and live on this site.

We're very committed to opening our technology to the developer community, and you can look for more to come in this area.

This is cool. The Web 2.0 vision is really starting to come alive! And the Where 2.0 subsystem :-) is where we're seeing some of the first traction. (Incidentially, both Paul Levine and Grg Woo Ouais will be speaking at our Where 2.0 Conference in San Francisco June 29-30.

tags: web 2.0 | comments: 7 | Sphere It
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Comments: 7

Greg "Grg Woo Oatis" Sadetsky [06.14.05 10:28 AM]

Thanks to David, Jerry, Paul and especially Tim for standing behind this data liberation!

(On an unrelated note, 'Oatis' would make more sense as "Ouais", the French equivalent of "Woo" (as a tribute to b3ta.com) :-)

Sam Critchley [06.15.05 07:05 AM]

Great news, except I can't actually see the lat/long in the Yahoo RSS. Can anyone post the right URI in a comment? Thanks, Sam.

Greg Sadetsky [06.15.05 07:55 AM]

Sam,

Take a look at John Resig's original post where he found out about the feeds: http://ejohn.org/blog/traffic-conditions-data/

The latitude / longitude are 'embedded' in the links associated with each traffic incident (road construction, closed lane, etc.). Hover over them and you'll see the position in the "&lat=" and "&lon=" arguments.

Jeffrey McManus [06.15.05 11:07 AM]

Be sure to check out developer.yahoo.net for info on all our integration technologies that you can use to build apps, we've got a pretty long list of stuff we're working on and a fairly interesting release coming up in a few weeks here, winkety wink.

Sam Critchley [06.15.05 03:25 PM]

Great, I see the latitudes and longitudes - thanks for that.

V Oeser [02.24.06 07:56 AM]

The map was fine However I was seeking road conditions, commuter delays, and weather related accidents in the kirkland area. What I got, was a map that just showed where road construction crews were.
Not too excited that I could not get the needed info.