Why Yahoo Maps chose AJAX

Ted Patrick has posted a very frank and thoughtful post discussing the reasons why Yahoo has moved from Flex to AJAX for the latest version of Yahoo Maps. To summarize he identifies 3 main reasons for the shift :

• Shortage of Flex developers
• Problems integrating Flash advertising into Flex applications
• Complexity of migrating from Flex 1.5 to Flex 2.0

Despite these points it seems an odd decision in a year when so many great Flex applications have emerged.

Google Street View : Ed Ruscha Revisited

Thinking about Top Street Views on the trip home I suddenly remembered how old an idea this actually is. In 1966 the American artist Ed Ruscha created a fold out book showing "Every Building On Sunset Strip". The technique was an automated camera attached to the side of a car. By driving down the street at a fixed speed he was able to photograph every building. Sound familiar.

Every building wasn't Ruscha's only photographic book. Similarly prescient was 1967's "Thirtyfour Parking Lots" photographed from a helicopter. Inspired by this book and the easy access of Google maps the blogger at AMP decided to create a Flickr set of parking lots.

Ruscha eventually went back to his painting. But it may turnout that his most durable contribution was his trail blazing photography.