History of Using Hosted Map Services Placebase, Poly9 & ZeeMaps

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Thousands of people & companies use ZeeMaps.com on a daily basis to publish map data.  How has ZeeMaps become so successful?  One word . . .  "Simplicity".

Existing mapping tools like ESRI & Google Maps still require advanced API programming knowledge to write code and then publish maps with multiple layers to web sites.

Placebase was a pioneer in the mapping space and provided a similar mapping service called Pushpin and was sold to Apple in 2009.  Unfortunately, Apple didn't care about the customers like me using the product and only wanted the engineering team and quickly shut down the map product shortly after.  Pretty stupid if you ask me.  Apple Maps is still years behind Google Maps I think for this reason.  One reason we think Apple acquired Placebase was that our map Deadcellzones.com was their most popular map and carriers & Apple didn't like users complaining about where and why their phone didn't work.

A year later in 2010, Apple acquired Poly9 which was a similar hosted mapping service called Mapspread.com.  We were also a customer of Mapspread after Pushpin.com shut down.  Another stupid move on Apple's part.  We only had 2 maps on the service at the time Deadcellzones.com and PhotoEnforced.com

Since 2011, Syndicated Maps have been using ZeeMaps which has figured out a way to make the data management very simple in the cloud.  No other mapping service has figured out a way to make the data management feature so easy and affordable.  Most other mapping services require customers to use, manage, and connect an existing cloud database into a mapping service.  Not trivial.

Syndicated Maps now have a network of 10+ public safety maps that are managed in the cloud using the service.  Each map a similarly hosted iframe with advertising wrapped around the map experience:

Photo Enforced Map  |  Cell Phone Coverage Map  |  Dangerous Intersections Map  |  Oil & Gas Drilling Map  |  Solar Energy Map  |  Oil & Gas Refineries Map  |  Power Plants Map  |  Sick Buildings Map  |  Smelly Hotel Rooms Map  |  Dangerous Schools Map  |  Disaster Relief Maps  |  Concert Tour Maps  |  Hockey Map  |  Theater Maps