GeoPlanet Update
Y! Geo is pleased to announce an update to the Yahoo! GeoPlanet web service. We’ve listened to your feedback and added several useful features to help you develop interesting applications using GeoPlanet.
First, we added a new query parameter called “callback” that allows GeoPlanet to return JSON data wrapped in a JavaScript function call (aka JSONP), so you can more easily process the GeoPlanet response within a JavaScript application and avoid cross-site serving issues.
Second, we added support for a new response format called GeoJSON. This is an evolving standard for adding geographic content to JSON.
Third, we added a new filter for the /places collection called “$and”. This filter allows you to apply two other filters (such as .q and .type) to the same request. This means that you can now limit results to just the place types you are interested in. The syntax for filters may seem strange, but it offers a lot of functionality.
Fourth, we added a /placetype resource that allows you to get information about a place type. This is handy if you want to find the name and/or description (see the next item) for a single place type.
Last, we added support for a long representation for the /placetype resource (and /placetypes collection) that includes a one line description of the place type. This is handy if you want a better understanding of a place type.
More detailed information about these new features is available in the GeoPlanet documentation, and examples are available on our GeoPlanet General Discussion Forum.
We also fixed several bugs reported by our developer community. We continue to view GeoPlanet as an evolving product, so let us know how we can make it better! Post a message to one of our GeoPlanet developer forums and tell us what you think.
Eddie Babcock, Principal Engineer, Yahoo! Geo Technologies
September 5th, 2008 at 8:31 pm
[…] Yahoo! announced some updates to GeoPlanet including GeoJSON support. Yahoo! seems much more quiet than most companies about their endeavors (Fire Eagle, GeoPlanet, Pipes) and I’m glad to see them improving given the pressures they are under these days. I really like how GeoPlanet is organized and I hope it (and Fire Eagle and Pipes) continues to be improved and enhanced. Plus not having to deal with XML is a huge bonus. Now if ESRI can support GeoJSON with their RESTful API we’ll all be very happy. […]