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15 July 2008

New Google Map API Ad Icons (Experimental)

New Google Map API Ad Icons (Experimental)

Google Maps API are rolling out some changes with the Ad Manager.

New Ad Manager - Google Maps API Icons
You can now have a maximum of 10 'Advert Icons' on your custom map.

"Over the coming weeks, we're going to making a few changes to the
style of the ads rendered by GAdsManager.

Starting in version 2.119, we're going to be making two small changes. "
Mike(Google Employee)

(make that 3)

  1. replacing the current white pushpin style with a new style where the ads will appear to be flat "on the map. see example image
  2. "nudging" the ads slightly, so that ads will no longer ever sit on top of any text rendered in the map tiles.
  3. also starting to serve ads outside the USA
Mapperz can show an example that is working in the UK.
http://mapperz.googlepages.com/ads_manager_test.html
(If you don't see new icons displayed - try zooming once or panning the map - please remember that it is experimental!)

The one issue that you can clearly see at present is the icons still overlap text on the map tiles.
(this is due to the the tiles being rasters, to solve this google would new to vectorize the text as a bounding box and buffer the vector rectangles to create 'avoid ad/text clashing polygons'.
A tip from cartographic text placement there.)
VectorMagic does a very good job (Sample)

Here is an new icon
http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/imgad?id=CIXc9e63iK6PywEQEBgQMggWzfQHA9oWTQ
and another
http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/imgad?id=CPOInt6BsJf1IhAQGBAyCGKbz0m-eFN1
(looks like each ad has its own id for adwords purposes.)

How do you enable?
Not everyone wants to have 'Google Ads' on there maps so it's an option to include it.

var map = new GMap2(document.getElementById("map")); //Add the Map
map.addControl(new GLargeMapControl());//Add the Large Control
map.setCenter(new GLatLng(37.423148, -122.084874), 13);//Centre on LatLng
var ads_opts = { //Add Ad Options
mode: "experimental", //Mode:Experimental -Subject to change
maxAdsOnMap: 10 //Maximum number of Ads (10 is Max)
};
var adsManager = new GAdsManager(map,
"google", ads_opts);
adsManager.enable();

"google" will be where you put your adsense id so any click through would be registered
to your account




Official Example
http://gmaps-samples.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/
adsmanager/adsmanager_new.html

Source:
http://groups.google.com/group/Google-Maps-API/browse_thread/thread/12534906310673ff#
Mapperz New UK Version
http://mapperz.googlepages.com/ads_manager_test.html

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2 Comments:

At Wednesday, July 16, 2008 12:11:00 am, Blogger Ryan.Arp said...

Thanks for the great update on this.

Ryan

 
At Thursday, July 17, 2008 5:04:00 pm, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Do you know if ads api is going to be available on its own? It would be great to incorporate it in projects using different providers such as OpenStreetMap and Microsoft. It would be neat to have it in UMapper (www.umapper.com)

 

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