

Tell HN: We just launched GeoAPI.com (read/write geo API) - mariusae
http://geoapi.com/

======
wooster
The sticking point with this, as with most geo APIs which depend on non-free
data, is the terms of use:

"The data in the API is our intellectual property or that of our partners who
provided it to us. It is not yours and we are not granting you any broad
license to use this data outside of the use of the API."

"You agree that you will not, and will not assist or enable others to:

a) cache, record, pre-fetch, or otherwise store any portion of the Company
Content or attempt or provide a means to execute any "bulk download"
operations;

...

j) make requests against the API that are not user initiated;"

<http://code.google.com/p/geo-api/wiki/TermsOfUse>

~~~
fnid
This is why I don't understand copyright law. Aren't data facts? Facts can't
be copyrighted, right? Where a business is located is a fact. How can they say
how someone else can use that fact?

~~~
randomwalker
_Facts are not copyrighted, but a collection of facts as such may be
copyrighted, assuming there is some creative activity involved in compiling
the collection. So, a list of the most common English words would be
copyrighted, since there is creative effort involved in deciding whether a
word is common._

<http://www.iusmentis.com/copyright/crashcourse/protection/>

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maxklein
I want to use this, but I'm afraid I will receive that email: "We're sorry,
but due to circumstances beyond our control, we regret to inform you that
further use of our service will require a monthly subscription fee and the
sacrifice of your first born."

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idoh
That's a really nice service. So, how much is this going to cost?

~~~
othman
Right now the model is free. We limit it to 20K hits per day. If you need more
than that, ping us and we can help out (api at geoapi.com)

~~~
nixme
Will you charge in the future? Will there always be a free plan with a limited
number of hits?

~~~
othman
There will always be a free plan with a relatively reasonable volume - at
minimum, it will always be a 'fremium' kind of thing. At which point we start
charging is, frankly, to ensure that we can at least cover serving costs.

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huangm
Just out of curiosity, where do you get your data?

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recurser
Haven't had time to dig in but nice work with the gfx, looks great.

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andrewljohnson
Why does this only includes 10's of thousands of POIs? Why not include USGS
and GeoNames points... there are millions of them.

Is this supposed to be strictly urban points?

~~~
mariusae
not at all -- we're aggressively adding datasets, and those are among the ones
that are on the top of our list :-)

~~~
dannyr
I really like it.

Are you allowing API users to cache/store data?

~~~
gjblee
Glad you find it useful! Yes, you can write data to the API via custom views.
See Demo 1 at <http://code.google.com/p/geo-api/wiki/Demos> for an example of
writing check-in comments to locations. Full user view API docs here:
<http://code.google.com/p/geo-api/wiki/ViewUser>

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rmason
Excuse me "query the world" what exactly does that mean? They need to describe
it so that it is instantly compelling and they fail.

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barmstrong
It looks good but my biggest unanswered question when I saw it: What's the
difference between this and the Google Geocode API?

~~~
othman
Hi - it's actually quite different. As of now, we don't (yet) have a _forward_
geocoding api exposed. Rather, most of the API functionality that's live is
for _backward_ geocoding. As in, with Google's Geocoder, you give a string and
you get back a place. With us, you give a place (i.e. lat/lon) and you get
where that place is and what's around it.

That being said, a number of people have been pinging us about getting simple
geocoding functionality, so stay tuned for that as well :).

~~~
othman
BTW, there are also a number of other differences - below is a quick list: \-
Type of data: One of things we do is combine a number of different datasets
(16+ M businesses, points of interest, intersections, etc...) \- Query type:
You get very powerful expressiveness in the types of queries you do. You can
literally make a request for 'Japanese restaurants that are within 1 mile and
that are open at 10pm.' \- Media layers: For most entities, you can get media
layers such as Twitter and Flickr. For example, you can get tweets around the
mission ([http://api.geoapi.com/v1/e/mission-san-francisco-
ca/view/twi...](http://api.geoapi.com/v1/e/mission-san-francisco-
ca/view/twitter?apikey=demo&pretty=1)). We're adding more layers as we go. \-
UserView: Each developer gets a private namespace into which they can add
information and run geo queries on it. Basically, you can annotate the world
with close to zero effort.

~~~
lilypad
The query syntax is pretty cool, but as far as raw geocoding I don't really
get it -- Google has a much bigger dataset than this, offers reverse geocoding
just fine (With good neighborhood data in the US and Europe). And I gather you
are just proxying requests to twitter and flickr (and not actually storing all
this for all places yourself) -- why wouldn't I just query their APIs
directly?

Not trying to be snarky, I just don't understand....

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thomasswift
This looks awesome, thanks for posting this. I plan on taking a look at it and
using it for an iPhone app or two.

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angelod101
looks great based on what I've read in product & demos. would have loved to
use this in my last project instead of geonames

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llimllib
Why reverse geocoding but not geocoding?

~~~
othman
In the werks :)

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madh
Congrats on the acquisition!

