Yesterday Google launched a new Flash API for Google Maps that allows Flex developers to integrate Google Maps into their applications. In my mind, the release of this API shows the progress that Flex is making. The largest online company in the world has acknowledged the need to create an API for Flex developers, recognizing that there are some things that Flex and Flash can do better than Ajax. From their blog post announcing the release:

"So, what do I like about the API for Flash? Smoothness and speed are a big part of it. We've designed it so that Flash graphics can be used for each tile layer, marker and info window - opening up possibilities like dynamic shading, shadowing, animation, and video. When the user zooms the map, magnification changes happen smoothly and place names fade in. After the user drags a marker, it gently bounces to a halt. Generally, Flash allows for much greater embellishment, and, well... "flashiness.""

Ryan Stewart has more information about this release, and Igor Costa has already created a Flex component for it. This is great news for Flex developers.

Yahoo has released an ActionScript 3.0 API for Yahoo Maps. This is one of the most requested features from Flex developers. Ted Patrick has more information on the release. If you're interested in developing with this new API, check out the Yahoo Maps Flash developer center page, which includes the code, examples, and screencasts.

Doug McCune posted a blog entry yesterday on some work that he is doing for map based data visualization with Flex. The (impressive) video from his blog post is shown below, and he has a sample application online that you can play with.

It reminded me of a similar application that I blogged about a while back, built by the team at Stamen Design that shows new homes and buildings being built in major cities throughout the US. I love how they've implemented time into the application with animation, bringing a 3rd dimension to the 2-d application. The blog also has a number of interesting stories of cities throughout the US.

Doug's work does something similar: it exposes data in a very intuitive and easy to understand application. The magic for these applications isn't in the data or the program, its in the UI and how they're using a different approach to displaying information. One can easily imagine how this information would be displayed for most police forces today: likely in a long table, or maybe on a physical map, with push pins for certain incidences. What's really impressive about the demo is how they integrate all the information, including the location of existing patrol cars, into a single application. Its not hard to imagine how useful this app could be. That's why the demo is so good.

ParkingSearch.com is a website to easily sell and find parking spots, mostly in the United States. Sellers can post parking spots for a one time fee of only $14.95. You can easily search for parking spots available using cities or zip codes, with parking spots being displayed on a map inside of the application. Sellers can add additional attributes to the parking spaces, like whether or not the space is in a garage, if there's security on the premises, indoor or outdoor, heated or not etc...

Showing location based information on a map is so common place these days, its hard to believe that only 2 years ago this was considered earth shattering. So many great applications are now integrating maps directly into the application, and its helping so much with understanding data. Its amazing how much online maps improve the user experience, as it does here and with searching for used cars.

Hindsight really is 20 / 20, and in the case of this application from the team at Stamen design (creators of the Digg visualizations and this real time cab mapping application), its also beautfiul. They've created a Flash application that shows you how neighborhoods have changed over the years, by mashing up housing information onto an online mapping system, and adding in time as another dimension to the visualization. The result is a beautiful time lapse image that shows how certain neighborhoods have been built up over the years.

There are a number of points over at O'Reilly on why they used Flash for this particular application, but the one that most caught my eye was this statement: "The use of Flash 9 specifically means we can throw around *much* more data than is currently possible with AJAX approaches (thousands of points in real-time - none of the data is pre-rendered)". That's the main reason that I think we (Adobe) will be the leaders in RIA development for years to come. I explained it to new hires at sales training this way...

Flash Player 8 added in a new video codec, and really started the online video revolution. The focus for Flash Player 8 was the new video codec, and the team obviously had a goal for enabling online video. The rest (YouTube) is history. Flash Player 9 does that same thing for RIAs. The new virtual machine in Flash Player 9 was rewritten specifically to handle large amounts of data that you'll find in RIAs like the Hindsight application. Over the next two years, similar to the timing for online video, you'll see a number of great applications take advantage of that new VM, and the huge speed increase. That's why I think Flash will win in the RIA market - Flash Player 9 is for RIAs as Flash Player 8 is for online video.

Getting back to the the app, it was built for Trulia, a real estate search portal, who also have a cool Ajax based heat map (is that an oxymoron?) that shows how hot a certain location's real estate market is.

Via the O'Reilly blog, and an email from Derek Wischusen. Visit Derek's site if you're interested in more information about Ruby on Rails and Flex working together.

The past few days have seen a flurry of activity in the online mapping world - and Flash technology is at the center of all of it. First, Google added 360 street side views into their online maps, using Flash to display the image. TechCrunch has the story, and Ted Patrick has some more information as well. I love the way that Google is integrating Flash and HTML / Ajax together. This application, along with Google Finance and Google Analytics, are really great examples of how to use Flash in HTML applications.

Then, Mapquest announces that they have support for an ActionScript 3 API for their mapping application. This allows Flex developers to easily build applications that incorporate Mapquest data into their applications, like this golf course finder application. The API itsellf is documented here. This screencast shows the possibilities that come when you can integrate video directly into a mapping application.

Not to be outdone, Zach Graves from Yahoo, created an AS 3 library for Yahoo Maps, and according to Ted Patrick , he completed this in about 24 hours! You can see the result of his work here.

Is online mapping the next area that Flash will take over? Flash currently dominates online video, and is taking over online audio as well. Online mapping is one of the most popular applications on the web, and the possibilities of integrating video and mapping data together is intriguing, as the Mapquest screencast shows. At the very least, Flex developers need to be really happy that they've got an official solution (from Mapquest) to integrate mapping info in their applications, and an unofficial solution (from Yahoo) that's being developed.

The Flex based Yahoo! Local Maps has gone out of beta, and is now the default mapping application at maps.yahoo.com. Congrats to the Yahoo! maps team, this is a great accomplishment.

RIAPedia covered Yahoo! Maps earlier.

Its a hard process to determine which RIA to cover first on this blog. There are a ton of them that I've shown to people over the past year or so, with more getting added all the time. I've decided to start with one of my personal favourites: Yahoo! Maps Beta.

Yahoo! Maps Beta provides similar functionality to Google Maps, but was built with Flex rather than Ajax technologies. The site isn't the default Maps view just yet, but you can still check it out in beta form.