Apr 28 2008
National Geographic’s TOPO Explorer - Where’s the API!?
National Geographic just rolled out a beta of their new TOPO! Explorer website. It’s got a really nice Ajaxy-Google Maps interface but with real, genuine topo data, something that’s impossible to get on the web. I took a look at the source and they’re using all of the technology-goodness of Google maps but sadly there isn’t any kind of API so we can start creating topo-mashups of our very own.
The site has some great features. You can upload GPX data, geotag your photos and videos, then share all that data as a trip. You can also buy Topo maps (a key feature for National Geographic). Having all of this Web 2.0 goodness with the Topo data is awesome but it does leave me hungering for more. I’m totally fine buying software to sync with my GPS. And I think freeing the data and letting people do awesome things with it would only drive more sales. But what do I know.
