I have recently had to sign up for both a Google and Yahoo! maps api key. There is a world of difference between the two sign up processes. First we have yahoo.
There are eight required form fields. Some of which I don’t even necessarily have an answer for. Product name? Description? I want to just play with some maps!
Then there is the authentication section, apparently connect to the non-authentication web services with the generic option, is maps non-authenticated? Kinda hard to know. And there is another question about access scopes which to the uninitiated seems to be asking the same thing as authentication. Over all very confusing (and I consider myself to be fairly technical).
Now, compare to the Google Maps Api Key form.
We have two fields, and one is a checkbox agreeing to the terms of service. Couldn’t get any simpler.
What is the lesson here? Only ask for as much information as you absolutely need to allow the user to start using your application. If I wasn’t using Yahoo! Maps for a client project, I would have given up and gone back to Google.
Perhaps Yahoo isn’t looking for people who “want to just play with some maps!” :)
Everybody has to start somewhere. I needed to use Yahoo! for some client work, so wanted to register a key so I could try it out, see how hard it would be to migrate from Google.
The main problem is that the form receives no context, with that sign up form you can access all of Yahoo!’s apis. I clicked on a link from the mapping api to get there, it should know that and not ask me the questions about authentication and access levels (I shouldn’t have to know what access level is required to use the maps api).
On the other hand, I find that Google asks too few questions, and then they make you request a new access key for every directory in which you want to show a map. This effectively means you can’t have a RESTful URL scheme such as ”/properties/123/edit” with a map on the form… If they required an email address or some other credentials, I wouldn’t need to manage multiple API keys for each site unnecessarily. As it is, I need to create keys for my local development, staging, and production domain names. So, if I have 3 or 4 “directories” (i.e. resources) with maps, that’s a dozen keys I have to create.
So, take your “2 fields and one check box” and do the math…
Andrew,
I am not sure what you mean, a Google maps api key is valid for all subdirectories under the one you specify. So in your example, assuming it was hosted at example.com, you could just get one key for example.com which would work for /properties/123/edit and /properties/123 and /cities, etc etc. Yahoo! operates the same way, you need a separate key for each domain.
It would be very nice in both cases if you could specify multiple domains to use the same key.
@Andrew
That was true in the past, but the API has changed to allow one key to work for all subdirectories.
(I just found this post again after reading your articles on Git… It’s uncanny how Google leads back by different paths…)
@PJ Hyett, THANK YOU for pointing out this change! Wow, that sure makes things easier, I’ve been using their API for so long and I never knew they fixed this annoying aspect.
Ok, I take back all the bad things I ever said about Google…