Custom Flickr Map
For years I’ve struggled with the fact that the native Flickr map functionality refuses to show you all of your photos on one map. Perhaps this is a limitation of the Yahoo map integration (Flickr is after-all, a product of Yahoo), or maybe it’s just an oversight. I’m an avid Flickr user, but I’ve always wanted that capability of displaying all of my photos on a single map–even if it’s just for a high-level view of everywhere I’ve taken pictures.
Over the last couple weeks I’ve been perfecting my own integration of Flickr with Google Maps, and I think it’s finally time to reveal it. You can play around with it above, or view it in full screen (which is far, far better than that little window). First things first, let’s understand what is actually going on here. I’m using the Flickr API to load data for geo-tagged photos into a local MySQL database (which updates nightly). That data is then returned and parsed into Google Maps. I’m doing a little query magic to put images from the same location on the same marker and information popup, and a little bit of customization to the way the map actually functions. When the map loads, the extremes (called ‘bounds’ in the Google Maps API) are determined by finding the most northern, eastern, southern and western photo in the database, and zooming the map to fit that area. This ensures that when the map initially loads, all markers are visible and that boundary is centered in the map. I’ve also developed a little additional navigation that allows me to specify buttons to specific countries or regions of my liking. Clicking one of those buttons will determine the most northern, eastern, southern and western photos in that particular region, and zoom the map to that area. For those of you technical folks, there’s a more technical overview below.
Google Analytics API
The amazing folks over at Google have recently released what could only be considered a godsend to developers and small businesses. The new Google Analytics Data Export API allows you to connect to the detailed collection of parameters, dimensions and metrics that Google Analytics captures from your website, allowing you to create your own queries and reports on the raw data. Ultimately this allows you to extend the functionality of content management systems and other integrated products to create a seamless portal that includes statistical reporting using Google’s data. Below is a screen shot of a report that compares month to date values against the previous month as a benchmark.
Google Analytics Data Export API Example