Love PhotoLinker - but I miss Google Maps

[brentborg]

Congratulations on a great product - it's exactly what I've been looking for, and a great upgrade from GPSPhotoLinker.

One thing - while the Cloudmade and OpenStreet maps in PhotoLinker are great for North America, they not as good as Google Maps for Japan - where I take a lot of photos. Is there any way to add Google maps as an option????? I'm ready to buy, but I really want Google maps!

Cheers,

Brent

[Jeffrey_Early]

Brent,

I couldn't agree with you more that better map tiles would nice. The map licensing situation has been frustrating, but we have some good alternatives in the pipeline.

Google maps, although found in other apps, is not legally allowed in a desktop application. See this FAQ here.

But, in addition, any commercial application requires a license with Google. Clearly Apple has a special license with Google, but us smaller vendors aren't able to afford the license (or often even get in contact with Google). At least one of PhotoLinker's competitors has been threatened with legal action, which appears to be a fairly commonplace occurrence.

I don't want to advertise a feature that I have to take away and I still think I can come up with a good alternative.

Microsoft Virtual Earth has another fantastic set of maps that the PhotoLinker beta testers were using for a while. Unfortunately, after several weeks of discussions with Microsoft, it became pretty clear that they too are unable to license their tiles for small vendors. Here's what the licensing situation looks like,

- Every 8 map tiles equals 1 transaction.
- 1 transaction costs approximately $0.01.
- Map tiles can't be cached for more than 8 hours, after which they must be re-downloaded.

I did a few simple tests, and starting from a world view, zooming to street level in Boston, and then scrolling around over GPS tracks, I downloaded about 500 tiles in two minutes of use. This works out to be 10 MB of data, but would cost Early Innovations between $0.50 - $1.00. Of course, after an hour of scrolling around, and then doing this again the next day, a user could easily exhaust the cost of PhotoLinker. Another way to look at this is that it would cost Early Innovations $100 per gigabyte used by our users.

In conclusion, Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo aren't yet on board with independent software vendors legitimately using their maps. I will continue to work on licensing with these three vendors because I'm hoping it's only a matter of time before they tap this market segment. However, as I said before, we have some other options in the pipeline.

Jeffrey

BTW - If anyone has other ideas, information or sources for good map tiles, please let us know!

[brentborg]

Hi Jeffrey,

Thanks for the quick answer. I had no idea that the process could be so frustrating and expensive. I'll keep my fingers crossed for progress with Google or Microsoft or Yahoo. I can appreciate the challenges of being an independent developer. I wish that I had a good suggestion for a source of good map tiles, but unfortunately I can't help there - maybe one of the GPS makers like Garmin would give you a break! Maybe a temporary solution while you work things out to get more detailed maps is to have a "view on Google Maps" button similar to the one in GPSPhotoLinker that goes out to Google Maps on the web to can check the precision of the placement of a tag in situations where the maps built into your application aren't detailed enough.

Anyway, I still really really like PhotoLinker - it's head and shoulders above a few other applications that I've "test driven".

Cheers,

Brent

[Gasport]

Jeffery,

I viewed the link and actually own a copy of the product. The author there indicates he has put back the ability to use Google Maps and will use the other maps as a backup in case Google pulls the plug on them. I really like some of the features of your new product, but I just love Google Maps and the satellite view as it gives one a great option to view the area where the photo was shot. Do you think you might reconsider in view of what they have done? I sympathize with you and the other author as Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo should allow access to their maps for free even though it is via a commercial program.

Ray

By the way, I enjoyed your video as I live on Cape Cod and have been to all the places you visited on your trip to MA. Do you have a photo site where this trip is available for viewing?

[brentborg]

Hi Jeffery,

I've been looking around at other software that can be used to geotag photos and notice that something called Geostetter for windows http://www.geosetter.de/en/ seems to be using Google Maps - I'm not sure how the developer of Geosetter did it but perhaps he has some suggestions!?

Cheers,

Brent

[Jeffrey_Early]

I think that it's very appropriate that I would pay Google a percentage of my sales for use of their maps within my commercial application. What Google needs is something like the Enterprise license that can be used in desktop applications and is affordable by smaller ISVs. The current approach by small ISVs is to just use the free API and hope Google doesn't get on your case about it.

Ray -- I haven't added those MA photos to flickr, picassa, or anything yet -- I should do that though. My sister is the one actually sorting through all the photos, but it's an overwhelming project with something like 8 separate cameras all shooting photos throughout a week. My sister's husband is actually from the area, so we all flew out and spent a week in West Falmouth around their wedding. I think we hit the weather and time of year just right... very pleasant and not crammed with other tourists.

Jeffrey

[Jym]

What about if the user may enter its own Google Maps API key in PhotoLinker?

It's a way for PhotoLinker not to be directly involved. The amount of datas downloaded by one user would be too low to be considered by Google. The risk the Google Maps access to be shut down for all PhotoLinker users will be null.

And PhotoLinker will be able to provide at no risk a Google Maps integration.

[mike]

I reaaaaaly would like Google Maps as a backup.
I now it's not pretty, but how about an interface like this:
Have it launch Google Maps in a browser, just like you did in the earlier program.
Then when I've centered the google map where I want it, I hit the Link button in Google Maps and copy it.
Your program can read the location for the clipboard.

Google is happy because I still see their ads, and I'm happy because because that's way better than what I'm doing now.

[Jym]

Right now, I'm using a desktop application for Google Maps app found here: http://sites.google.com/site/emanuelet/
The app provide the GPS coordinates to any dropped pin on the map. Then a copy/paste… that's tricky I know, but in some cases, that helps me to precisely geotag my pics.

[Jeffrey_Early]

Microsoft changed their licensing restrictions on Bing Maps (formally VirtualEarth) a few weeks ago and the terms now allow usage for microISVs like us. Providing no unexpected hiccups in the licensing, we will add access to these maps back in (they were available during the beta period). These maps are fantastic, and will be a huge improvement for PhotoLinker!

Jeffrey