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

by mariusae • 17 years ago

77 30 17 years ago

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• 17 years ago

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

dannyr• 17 years ago

I really like it.

Are you allowing API users to cache/store data?

andrewljohnson2• 17 years ago

Groovy, good luck with that!

idoh2• 17 years ago

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

othman6• 17 years ago

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• 17 years ago

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

recurser• 17 years ago

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

angelod101• 17 years ago

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

thomasswift• 17 years ago

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

llimllib• 17 years ago

Why reverse geocoding but not geocoding?

othman6• 17 years ago

In the werks :)

wooster• 17 years ago

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

othman6• 17 years ago

As you might guess, the ownership over the data is a tricky issue, where there are many variables that aren't under our control. Our objective is to make the information as open as possible within these constraints. One thing to note, however, is that the userview portion (i.e. the data that an app WRITES to the API) does remain under the app's control (i.e. developers don't relinquish ownership). Over time, we do think there will be an opportunity to have developers contribute their improvements to a common pool of information to benefit everyone.

fnid• 17 years ago

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• 17 years ago

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/

idoh2• 17 years ago

Think contract law, not copyright law.

By signing up, you are making a contract with geoapi. If you violate that agreement, then they'd (potentially) have a case for breach of contract.

qeorge• 17 years ago

IANAL, but I think you're right. They really can't tell you what to do with public data even if they provided it to you, because as you said you can't copyright facts. Feist Publications vs. Rural Telephone Services is the most relevant case:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feist_Publications_v._Rural_Tel...

It gets hairy though because you are agreeing to their terms of use in return for the API key, and I'm not sure how that factors in. They're well within their rights to refuse service to you, but if you were able to scrape their data without agreeing to their terms, it may be legal.

Of course there's a million other places to get this data, and I'm not suggesting you scrape theirs. But I don't think there's anything stopping you legally, just some FUD in their TOS.

Would be very curious to hear from the site owners on this topic.

aw3c2• 17 years ago

Well, thankfully there is http://www.openstreetmap.org

barmstrong• 17 years ago

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

othman6• 17 years ago

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 :).

othman6• 17 years ago

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...). 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.

bbsabelli• 17 years ago

Huh?

New York: http://maps.google.com/maps/geo?q=40.724039,-74.00176

What am I missing here?

huangm• 17 years ago

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

maxklein• 17 years ago

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."

rmason• 17 years ago

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

madh• 17 years ago

Congrats on the acquisition!

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

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