Google finally embeds My Maps

Like every other Google map geek in the world, I’ve been waiting with anticipation for the release of embedded ‘My Maps’. Most unusual for Google to announce a feature before it’s released, usually it’s just a matter of keeping an eye on the blogs or looking for the “New” at the top of the various Google services. This time, however, the news was out more than a week ago, so I’ve been checking daily to see what form the new feature would take. Finally, it’s here with lots of good points and a couple of bad ones.

Neat… yes, in typical Google fashion the implementation is low-profile and simple. I really like the ability to customise the view. The biggest change for the average punter is the ability to embed a map without having to apply for a developer key… a requirement for each domain you wanted to embed maps into. The new embed is a simple iframe and accesses the API via the ‘My Maps’ feature, so in a way, the My Maps account becomes the ‘key’. All the same – very neat.

Not so neat… what is it with Google and code validity? The iframe code supplied in this first release is invalid when pasted into either HTML 4.x or XHTML 1.x! How hard would it have been to get that right?

1. frameborder="no" should be frameborder="0"
2. <br/> should be <br /> (space)
3. the ampersands & should be escaped &

All simple things that no html coder should need reminding about, so why did google forget?

Anyway, for what it’s worth – here’s the building I work in, presented as an embedded google map. Still pretty neat eh?

View Larger Map

Interesting news – it appears as though Google’s code validation errors are causing problems for blog users all over the place. Blogs won’t allow the invalid code to be included, complaining about the unescaped ampersands etc. I’ve read posts on the Google maps troubleshooting discussion forum that suggest that Google’s own Blogger won’t accept the code. That could be a tad embarrasing.