Change the Background of Your Map!

A couple of new developments in the Google Maps API should be of interest to Google Maps developers. Today the Google Geo Developers Blog announced that it is now possible to set the background colour of any map you develop using the Google Maps API.



By setting the background colour you can change the colour of the tiles that appears before the map tiles load, and on the north/south edges of the world at the low zoom levels. This means that developers can now create maps that blend more with the colour scheme of their web site.

Via: Google Geo Developers Blog: Wacky Wednesday: Change the background color of your map!

The other big development is in the Google Maps Ad Manager. Up until now the Google Maps Ad Manager has only served ads in US maps. It is now serving ads to other countries. The Mapperz blog has created an example showing ads in the UK (if you don't see new ad icons displayed try zooming once or panning the map).

As well as serving maps outside the US for the first time Google have also changed the design of the ad icons, replacing the current white pushpin style icons with a new style where the ads will appear to be flat "on the map".

Via: Mapperz

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