Using Google Maps to solve Autotrader irritation

[Musicman 0]

Autotrader are nice enough to tell you how far a car you're interested in is from where you live. The problem with it is that not all distances are equal. 40 miles to the other side of London is not as easy as 40 miles straight down the A3. If you're using public transport, you might prefer things to be the other way round. Sometimes you can't easily get hold of the seller and want to know whether it's worth trying to follow it up.

 

Google have an API that allows you to do stuff with Google maps like add overlays. With a little messing about you can get it to draw lines over the top of Gmaps.

 

So... I've put that to use here in a prototype page I built:

 

http://www.cybertects.co.uk/gmaps

 

Do three searches on Autotrader using the post codes provided as your location, enter the distances into the grid and where the circles overlap tells you where the car is located. :)

 

What do you reckon? Useful?

[Henny 0]

rather cool idea to be honest... 8)

[chrishill 0]

nice work!

 

now what'd be REALLY cool is a plug in for google earth that has on-map flags for cars for sale on autotrader that lets you click and go directly to the autotrader advert! theres a plug-in that displays 'local' photos from flickr using geographical information, sort of simular!

[Musicman 0]

Would be very cool. However, I suspect that Autotrader would charge heavily for direct access to their data and/or AutoBuilder APIs from another site, which is what you would need to do that - it's the kind of thing that Yahoo! have done replacing their old Yahoo! Autos marketplace in the US earlier this year.

[Musicman 0]

I've just posted a slightly updated version that does the lookups on Autotrader for you (provided you already know the exact model and price you're looking for) and opens the search results in four separate windows.

 

Saves messing about with half the copying and pasting, at least :)

 

http://www.cybertects.co.uk/gmaps/index-atsearch.html

[Henny 0]

damn it, that's goood... 8) :notworthy:

[bristolbaron 10]

ha ha bs1 1hq.. walkabout and san carlo on corn st!!

 

Saved in bookmarks.. good work! :cheers:

[Musicman 0]

Ta :)

 

I'd stick with the first URL for the time being. That's the one I'll keep updated (just did a bit of tidying up of the JavaScript code and making it all flow a bit more logically) and add other Google Maps-based ideas as and when they occur to me. The other one's liable to disappear. ;)

[HiAsAKite 0]

nice work!!!

[bix 0]

Nice idea and good work, but a. if you cant get hold of the seller you'll have trouble following it up, and b., you can get a rough location from the dialling code anyway! I like it tho, could come in handy..maybe :)

[sciroccotune 0]

good work , was just reading an articl in the economist about website like this. They call it 'mash-up'

 

http://www.economist.com/science/tq/dis ... id=4368150

 

:-)

[Musicman 0]

Fair points.

 

I just found myself drawing circles in Photoshop trying to work out whether I could be bothered to try calling a mobile number on a bit of a flyer and thought there had to be an easier way and little things like this help keep my JavaScript skills from going completely rusty. :)

[Musicman 0]

@ sciroccotune, Interesting article

[bristolbaron 10]

bix, most ads only tend to have mob no's these days though.

[bristolbaron 10]

just been looking at a car on autotrader and wanted to check where it was.. remembered this handy webpage and thought i should bump the thread.

[culshaw 1]

the google maps api isn't completely accurate (but can give you a closer assumption than most) because of the legalitys of it and the fact royal mail aren't getting a cut of the lookups... (sorry if im busting your bubble) but great stuff... did something like this for a retailer search recently for one of our clients :)

[MikLSP 0]

Oh, wish I'd known about this while I was looking for my Corrado. I did think of entering different postcodes myself to try and track the locations down but it would have been much easier if I'd used that site, good work.

[junkie 0]

Just get an iPhone

[culshaw 1]

Just get an iPhone