Spaced Out ::

During the “Maps as Method” sessions at the RGS-IBG last week, there were a surprising number of people talking about using Google Maps and Google Earth in mashups. In particular, using them to leverage visualisation, data serving and data exploration. All admirable goals, except I couldn’t understand why there was such a focus on Google products. What blew people away with Google Earth was the access to imagery, but none of these talks were focused on imagery. Google Maps provides a nice “slippy maps” interface, but there are other vendors. In fact the biggest negative to Google Maps (and Earth) is the proprietary interface and commercial data. Compare it to OpenStreetMaps and perhaps using OpenLayers. An open source interface with non-commercial data. Is anyone working along these lines at all?? Why all the fuss with Google Maps?? Is the API really that much better? Or have I missed something painfully obvious?!