Suggestions for simple mapping platform for alumni web site

Question

I'm working on a proof of concept alumni site with a WordPress backend. I want to have a very simple map that shows where alumni are living. I'm thinking something like the Bing API or a simple open source solution - points on a map right now. Not sure yet how I will be getting locations, perhaps a user submission system somehow. Any ideas on good, solid, simple ways to accomplish something like this? I'm on a LAMP stack hosted with WebFaction, and I know just enough PHP to be dangerous.

EDIT: Here's what I ended up with. Jlivni got me looking the Google route and some hacking on this method gave me this:

It's powered on the back end by a publicly viewable Google Spreadsheet. Pretty easy to implement and hack up. And I can pass of the editing of the spreadsheet to just about anyone and they can carry out that task.

Answer 1

It sounds like you have a few different things you need to do:

• Geocode your user locations (e.g. from an address / postal code)
• Store the locations/attributes somewhere
• Render them on a map

You can choose to do some or all of this using open source or other alternatives. If it were me, I would probably use some of Google's mapping stack (disclaimer, I work there).

Specifically, I would insert the data into Fusion Tables using their API. To have your Wordpress site automatically insert data there, you will need to authenticate using something like OAuth, perhaps using a library like this one and write some code to insert/update the data when the user changes it in Wordpress.

Now the hard part is over: With your user data (including a single address column) in Fusion Tables you can very easily embed a map showing all of your users by going to your table at google.com/fusiontables, clicking Visualize -> Map, zooming to your area of interest, and selecting the embed code that you can put into your site.

Answer 2

I like jilivni answer the most (so far). I have yet to mess about with Fusion, and seems like a good choice for your needs. However, you mention a LAMP, stack, so storing the data in MySQL could be a good option.

Check this tutorial on how to use PHP to show MySQL data (your table of users/locations) on top of Google Maps.

In terms of gathering the initial data, you could also expand the web app, to allow users to fill in a form and then click on the map to create their own records in the MySQL Db (or Fusion table), but personally, I would gather this info through other means, like a blanket email to your users with a couple of basic questions. That way you can Q&A it before throwing it into the MySQL/Fusion backend.

Answer 3

most simple that you can get 100% participation on is to collect zip code (I am assuming US locations) with the zip you can do a geocode to show the locations and you might aven show aggregate count as popup value. you can probably do most of this in bing or google api.

Answer 4

If you're willing to use Visual Studio this, http://code.google.com/p/gmaps-api-net/, does most of what you want, if your site will be available to the public. If your site will be behind a paywall, then this is too pricey.