One of my recent posts is about how companies that embrace all the popular platforms abound will be the ones that will win. So I am very intrigued by what Loki can do - removing the ‘where’ field in local search is quite big. It would be great if you could notify me when the new release does come.

The 10,000 restriction - there is a reason why we built our own geocoder I’m not saying 10,000 as a number itself is low - it was the wording that caught me. Perhaps I mis-interpreted, but it sounded like if you went over 10,000, you were (essentially) SOL. I understand you don’t want to be hammered, but language that conveyed your willingness to work with a partner like me would go a long ways towards making me feel better. After all, it is a win-win situation here - the more users I have using Loki - well, the win here for you guys is obvious [and you didn’t clear up what a transaction was - any call, or only successful calls].

All in all - I am intrigued. Honestly the biggest thing holding me back is the actual adoption rate of Loki - any chance sharing some numbers on that?

I just read your post of the new Loki Javascript API and thought I would respond personally. I am in charge of Loki as a product and I take your comments very seriously.

First of all, you make very good points. We launched Loki almost exactly a year ago as the first toolbar to let users start using location-based services on their laptops without needing a GPS device. Over that year we have tried to improve the product, streamline the features that we push out there and learn more about our end users.

The Javascript API is a feature that we hoped would help take our location technology and put it in the hands of web developers so they could start to do something meaningful with the information and begin to deliver more enhanced services around location. So while its a great first step, we definitely need to keep working at improving the product to better serve the people who want to use the API on their site. This includes bringing the download size down and not pulling users away from the site they were currently on just so they can location-enable that partner site. We want to support our partners in the best way possible, so your feedback is great to hear. So please stay tuned for the next release as you should see a lot of these issues are being resolved.

As for the 10,000 transaction restriction that was put in place to try and find a happy medium between non-commercial users and commercial users. If you look at the Yahoo! Geocoder API, they limit you to 5,000 requests per day — we thought we were being good samaritans by doubling that number. Is there a number that you have in mind that makes more sense? We are definitely willing to listen.

So know that we are committed to improving the product and we need feedback like yours to do it. So I really appreciate the post and I would be happy for you to email me so we can discuss it more.

Best,

Ryan Sarver