Okay, so since Google Earth and the Google Maps API came out, I have had some fun playing with obscure uses for interactive maps within RE sites.

Google Earth is a great toy, but (in my experience) completely unsuitable for home searches. PruPref (aka eRealty) tried it around here, and the AJAX was just too slow to be practical. I.e., scroll left... wait... scroll up... wait... etc.

Google Maps is definitely more promising, and the way that the PruPref guys are going now.

Personally, I think it's still a bit clunky for actual searching. Sure, it's nice to see where the listings are in relation to others, etc., but even with a high-speed connection it takes more than a few seconds to load.

So I've been toying with more of the basics, like About Us directions, and enhanced office location maps.

I think there may be place for these technologies in Home Tours (i.e., trip planning) and probably Featured Properties lists, but the heavy reliance on connection speed, client processing power, and the necessity to have scripting enabled makes me reluctant.

What do you folks think?

-MattL

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PMPVOWs.com Lead Programmer, MLSNI IDX/VOW solution provider

As most long-time readers of this forum will remember, I've been championing G maps since day one.

But, let's recognize the sinister side of G. Everything they do, every service they develop and support is there for just one reason -- their income.

So, when developing a G map application, just keep putting your (customers') property coordinates, descriptions, addresses, prices, etc. into source code for G to index.

Deserves a big "hmmmm", can you say "google base".

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Well, they are getting the coordinates, but that's about it -- most of the enhancing is done in JavaScript via XSLT and never sent back to the server (which is what makes it slow and dependent on client processing power). And, knowing what I do of Google from a philosophical standpoint, they don't have much value in the map data aside from choosing where to put new datacenters. If they actually provided a "real estate template" that pushed the RE data back to the server, I might agree with you.

GMail is a far better target for ad-based data mining than GMaps will ever be.

-Matt

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PMPVOWs.com Lead Programmer, MLSNI IDX/VOW solution provider

I agree that speed will hold geo-mapping back. We are experimenting with pages for increased loading speed.. We have more work to do but it looks promising

For what it's worth, I just learned that if you include your custom map-marker icon on the page before the GMap script loads (even display:none), IE will use the cached version of the marker rather than calling to the web for each pushpin. It makes a dramatic difference when there are 10+ markers.

-Matt

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PMPVOWs.com Lead Programmer, MLSNI IDX/VOW solution provider