The only limitation to this whole project is that the traffic is limited to 5% of the traffic generated on the pulbic site. If one user uses more than 1% of that, then Multimap will “be in touch to discuss how we can work together to help you grow”. Which sounds like you’ll be asked to open a commercial account. In any case, if you’re looking to create something based around draggable maps then multimap’s openAPI is well worth a look. In addition as Multimap support Mapstraction.com (mapstraction currently supports Multimaps paid service) you should be able to use that so that switching between providers becomes even easier.

For more info on Multimap’s openAPI see http://www.multimap.com/openapi/

Let’s face it, the EULAs for all of these services contain disclaimers stating that the data is the user’s responsibilty. That’s logical, but how many of these services make it easy for the end user to back-up their data. A common concept in Web 2.0 applications is that it’s easy to get data in and easy to get data out, but how many well-known web 2.0 applications have a feature that allows the user to both export and re-import exported data?

I took a look at a few of the applications I mentioned above and found that the means to backup data is not as comprehensive as it needs to be:

Conclusion

I am advocating that any web application that handles any level of user data above basic account information should at a minimum provide a way to export all data and import the exported data back-in. In the unlikely event of a major disaster at the supplier’s end, where their own backup fails, the user can simply restore their data.

Even though it may be extremely unlikely that data will be lost in this way, it would be comforting to know that we can take responsibilty of our own data recovery.