Online Map Services - maps for your web site courtesy of Google, Microsoft and Yahoo.
One of the great things to come out of the growing popularity in web mapping is the advent of map services that you can use on your own web site.
In the UK, most geographic data (including the British national grid coordinate system) is owned by the government and managed by the Ordnance Survey. Unlike in the USA where government owned data is freely available,
the Ordnance Survey are required to cover their own costs and the license fees for using their data can be more than some project budgets can bear.
Online mapping services take away the requirement to manage your own geopgraphic data and map server and allow you to concentrate on using the maps. Depending on your requirement there may be a fee for using
a mapping service but you can also use them without cost if your map use fits within their licensing conditions.
The main services are listed below. Click the titles for further information and examples:
The free map service from Internet giant Google.
Virtual Earth is Microsoft's worldwide service similar to Google Maps.
Multimap was a UK based map company that has now been purchased by Microsoft. Unlike the other services listed here, MultiMap charges fees for embedding their map service in your own website. This different license model may suit
commercial organisations that cannot use the global mapping services from the search engine giants.
Yahoo offer their own mapping service which can be used in a native browser or with a flash mapping client.
