Introducing BOSS Geo – the next chapter for BOSS
From the post:
Today, the Yahoo! BOSS team is thrilled to announce BOSS Geo, new additions to our Search API that’s designed to help foster innovation in the search industry. BOSS Geo, comprised of two popular services – PlaceFinder and PlaceSpotter – now offers powerful, new geo services to BOSS developers.
Geo is increasingly important in today’s always-on, mobile world and adding features like these have been among the most requested we’ve received from our developers. With mobile devices becoming more pervasive, users everywhere want to be able to quickly pull up relevant geo information like maps or addresses. By adding PlaceFinder and PlaceSpotter to BOSS, we’re arming developers with rich new tools for driving more valuable and personalized interactions with their users.
PlaceFinder – Geocoding made simple
PlaceFinder is a geocoder (and reverse geocoder) service. The service helps developers convert an address into a latitude/longitude and alternatively, if you provide a latitude/longitude it can resolve it to an address. Whether you are building a check-in service or want to show an address on a map, we’ve got you covered. PlaceFinder already powers several popular applications like foursquare. which uses it to power check-ins on their mobile application. BOSS PlaceFinder offers tiered pricing and one simple monthly bill.
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PlaceSpotter – Adding location awareness to your content
The PlaceSpotter API (formerly known as PlaceMaker) allows developers to take a piece of content, pull rich information about the locations mentioned and provide meaning to those locations. A news article is no longer just text but has rich, meaningful geographical information associated with it. For instance, the next time your users are reading a review of a cool new coffee shop in the Mission neighborhood in San Francisco, they can discover another article about a hip new bakery in the same neighborhood. Learn more on the new PlaceSpotter service.
What information would you merge using address data as a link point?
Amsterdam (Netherlands) is included. Perhaps sexual preferences in multiple languages, keyed to your cell phone’s location? (Or does that exist already?)
BTW,
We intend to shut down the current free versions of PlaceFinder and PlaceMaker on November 17, 2012.
Development using YQL tables will still be available.