The AOL APIs: MapQuest Advantage API

I recently received an email announcing that MapQuest has launched Advantage API Version 5.1. Before I became Managing Editor of the AOL Developer Community, I had no idea that MapQuest was an AOL property. I'm sure there are a lot of people who still are unaware of this.

You won't find a link to the MapQuest Advantage API on the AOL Developer Network APIs page. The Advantage API is MapQuest's business mapping solution. I'm sure you've seen it in action many times. Whenever you see a web site that offers a MapQuest maps, there's a good chance that you're seeing a solution from the MaqQuest Business Solutions team.

It costs money to apply the Advantage API on your Web site; but, you can request a download of the API, which will let you experiment, for free. An important reason to perform your Mapquest development planning using the Advantage API instead of the entirely free MapQuest OpenAPI is that the next version of the OpenAPI will be based on the Advantage API, not on the current Beta version OpenAPI.

Advantage API Introductory Documentation

The MapQuest team has put together an impressive online demo that showcases the Advantage API's core features. If you're interested in getting started with MapQuest, this is a great introduction to the Advantage API's features and capabilities.

The Advantage API home page provides a basic introduction to the API and why you might want to use it. Read the two-page Product Brochure for a more technical introduction. The Advantage API white paper is a 22-page detailed introduction to MapQuest Advantage API technology.

What's New in Version 5.1?

The email I just received highlights the following new features in Advantage API Version 5.1:

• Clone Table functionality added to Data Manager
• New Hotel Finder example application added to TRC Examples page
• Added Searches by (Month, Week, Day) reports to Reporting
• The Q2 2007 Data Release has been pushed to production. Advantage API is now using the latest data release. This data release provides new and improved geographic coverage for both mapping and geocoding.
• Hungary: Expanded mapping; detailed large-scale road coverage for Pecs and Szeged
• South Africa: New geocoding

The Data Release brings up something that sets MapQuest apart from its competitors. MapQuest has its own mapping databases that have been built up over a period of decades. The origins of MapQuest go back before the Web existed. In the pre-Web world, the early MapQuest team, which consisted of actual cartographers, made maps on paper. No other Web mapping application can make either of these claims (founded by cartographers and applying their own database of places gathered over decades).

Resources

I am working right now on the first of a series of articles about the MapQuest Advantage API. The first article will introduce the API; subsequent articles will go into depth on how to apply some of the core features of the API. The articles will include plenty of code matched up with the images the code produces, to show you how to get some cool mapping functionality up and running quickly. Stay tuned!

-- Kevin Farnham
O'Reilly Media