Looking to drive more traffic to your Maps API site? Mapplets have now been launched on Google Maps and are a great way to reach users with your geospatial data. You can create your whole mashup inside a Mapplet, or you can use it as a teaser that gives users a taste of your data and sends them to your Maps API based site for the full version.
Here's a YouTube Mapplet that I created last week. It plots recently uploaded YouTube videos on the globe based on the location that the user set when they uploaded the video. It was very easy to put this Mapplet together since the Mapplets API is very similar to our Maps API. The Mapplets API docs will help you get started on your own Mapplet.
Here are some videos that show how users can add Mapplets and My Maps to their maps:
http://maps.google.com/help/maps/mymaps/add.html
http://maps.google.com/help/maps/mymaps/create.html
Here are some articles on the Mapplets launch:
Reuters - Eric Auchard
http://www.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUSN1024754220070711
"Google Inc. will introduce on Wednesday a new feature that lets users
create personalized maps which plot the locations of everything from
cheap gas locally to the latest earthquakes worldwide."
CNET - Elinor Mills
http://news.com.com/8301-10784_3-9742147-7.html
"Google is really pushing the mapping envelope."
AP - Mike Liedtke
http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D8QA5DBO0.htm
"It's a really powerful innovation," said John Hanke, Google's
director of maps. "It's like combining chocolate and peanut butter.
They're good by themselves, but the combination is much more valuable
than when they are served in isolation."
Have fun coding!
-Brandon
