Importing Excel spreadsheets into Google My Maps

Its true, you can’t import anything other than a KML or a GeoRSS feed directly into Google My Maps. However you can use BatchGeo to create a KML and then import it straight into Google My Maps.

Just paste your Excel spreadsheet into the BatchGeo tool, validate the columns, and start the geocoder. When the map is done click the “Download Google Earth” below the map and you will have your KML.

Of course you could also use BatchGeo to host your map too. In fact we’d love to hear why you’d rather put it on Google My Maps. We even prepared a short video describing why we think BatchGeo has advantages over Google My Maps.

Map publishers with hundreds of markers – new tool

UPDATE: I have increased the number of points to trigger this feature from 100 to 500.

Publishing a map with hundreds or even thousands of markers can be problematic. Your maps may look like they are drowning in a sea of markers. Yesterday we rolled out a new feature that will help publishers with this problem.

Maps containing over 300 points with no groups assigned will have marker clustering enabled. This feature is thanks to the Google Maps Utility library. Below is an example.

Please post feedback on this feature here. I am still trying to sort out when is the appropriate time to have this feature turn on. I would rather not have to make it a toggle as I am interested in keeping things as simple as possible from an end user standpoint.

Thanks!

BatchGeo API – How do you want it to work?

For awhile now I have considered creating an API for developers to be able to access some of the technologies in BatchGeo. Sure you could go about using the Google Maps API directly, but geocoding using their API can be slow and troublesome. For instance they don’t offer any mechanisms for caching your geocodes beyond the context of a single user. It also requires you write complex JavaScript to create maps.

I’d envision an API that really hardly resembled one. It would allow you to write basic HTML to access BatchGeo’s mechanism of geocoding and saving to a web page. Once a page is saved you’d be able to update it by changing the source HTML.

My question is: Do you think an API would be useful to you, and what would you like to see in it? Assuming this is going to put greater strain on the server and might require additional hardware dedicated… Would you be willing to pay a monthly fee to support such an API?

Let me know what you think by posting here!