The new Yahoo! Maps tile engine Galileo is beautiful. Beauty in this case is very readable text labels, color coded neighborhoods, county line markings, icons for things like hospitals, and on regional views, a shaded topographic mapping.

The thing that impresses me most about this release is that you get a lot more information without feeling like you are in information overload. All of the new features are subtle and intuitive drawing from everything people already know from using a paper map. I’m used to the pastel fields of color with an all caps word in the middle that defines it. I’m used to the little blue square with an H in it for hospital.

I’m also impressed at how well they blended the level of detail across zoom levels. Topography would be very hard to past at the fully zoomed in level just as color coding neighborhoods wouldn’t make sense at larger views. That seems pretty obvious, but what I think was trickier are the many levels of zoom between that aren’t obvious about how much detail is needed. So far I think it strikes a great balance.

My last kudos is on the text. it is very readable with a sub-pixel stroke of white to accentuate it. It is also a pretty font. This one change alone makes the map go from functional to designed in my humble opinion.

Now that I have paid homage the lovely, rich simplicity of the map, I hope they do extend their maps even further. When there are icons for hospitals and airports, I’d love to be able to click on them and route to them. In the case of a hospital, I have had the need to find one quickly and it was a real horror. I can at least see where they are, but I would still have to route myself to them or figure out the intersection and enter it myself. I know this isn’t trivially easy to do since putting to many interactive markers would interfere with dragging, but it would still be cool.

This would be especially interesting since the tiles for Yahoo! Maps are in SWF format. You could actual bake in fully interactive elements to the tiles themselves rather than just relying on painted pixels.

While they haven’t put a post up about the new tiles yet on the Y! Local and Maps blog, you should still check it out for lots of other interesting features that are available.

I am very pleased to say that Yahoo! is forming a Flash Platform team to work as part of the Presentation Platform. It will be a team of six made up of myself, an architect and four kick-ass Flash developers. We will be working accross the company to make tools, components, classes, and policies that promote fast, elegant and otherwise perfect Flash development.

Would you like to be part of this team? If so, submit your resume through the post on hotjobs or your favorite Yahoo! employee (we do hiring bonuses). Click on the job title links above to see the job descriptions.

For now, if you are interested in the architect position, please go ahead and apply to the developer position. When I get the architect position up on hot jobs I will modify the post. Regardless, all of the resumes are coming my way and architect candidates should really stand out.

These positions are all full-time, on-site positions in Sunnyvale, CA (map). I’ve been at Yahoo! now for four years, and I can say that it really is a great place to work. You will work with some truly brilliant people, we offer great benefits, and some strange but interesting perks.

I just had to log in and post for this. I’m so very excited that Yahoo! Local is releasing the public beta of their new Yahoo! Maps product built in Macromedia Flex. There is so much to like about this product.

The interactions are great. There is full support for the browser navigation. Drag the map, hit back in the browser and watch your map slide back. There is a great mini-map view that allows you to drag a viewfinder around to move the map in a larger context, you can double click to zoom, right mouse click to get options, or even use arrow keys to pan.

The driving direction input is pretty fantastic too. As you enter addresses, you get user ratings of the business you are going to, you can drag to reorder destinations, and easily do multi-point trips. You can also choose from a list or search our yellow pages for business around destinations, and see information and details in really intuitive expanding bubbles on the map. There is a lot more to see, so definitely check it out!

The coolest feature though is the API. We aren’t leaving anyone behind with it. You can access the API through Javascript, ActionScript or Flex, with methods and properties that are the same across environments.

You can bring our maps into your own applications either using our pre-built tools, or with your own custom tools. You can add your own points on the map, and even your own marker types.

The overlays however are where the API really shines. You can take your own data and overlay and content you want on the map. Do you have a weather map? add it on! do you have elevation plottings for an area? Then make you own topographic map. If you want you can even use some of our overlays like real time traffic data.

hAPI hAPI Joy Joy!

I want to make a list of all conferences for which Flash is relevant. Those will include the regulars, but also I’d like to go beyond just “Flash Conferences.” If you are into games, GDC and E3 are still relevant. If you are into devices 3GSM and CTIA are good. What are the ones for every nuance of Flash that are good to attend? Also geography and language are irrelevant for the purposes of this thought exercise

So far I’m thinking of Flash, Mobile/device/gadget, Design, Animation, and Game conferences. If you can think of other good subcategories, let me know!

Click Here to see the permanent page and add more conferences! Once I get a good list going I will add it to my left-side navigation.

Yahoo! is hiring for several Flash Engineering positions, and I’m going to feature them here as I start getting them organized. Today’s feature is for an Engineering Team leader for Yahoo! Local. Despite what the job description sounds like, this will be a Flash/Flex position. The team to be led has a variety of web development skills, so it’s best for the applicant to be conversant with a wide variety of skills. They are looking for a senior, geeky Flash dev, and if you know Flex (well), all the better. If you are interested in the position (and you should be, this will be a good one) please send me your resume and I will forward it on.

I’ve been at Yahoo! for three years, and it is a great place to work. My technical knowledge has expanded a huge amount from working with such brilliant folks here. Also, the exposure to such large-scale endeavors is just plain cool. Coming from a small design firm previously, I found it just isn’t possible to prepare for the amazing amount of ideas, resources, and potential that enterprise work provides (not to mention that it is a good ego trip to know that your work is seen by a Yahoo!-sized audience)

Beyond the considerable professional benefits to life at Yahoo!, it is worth mentioning some of the neat benefits here. Free Coffee bar in every building (not a coffee pot… a full service coffee shop, but free), full gym, subsidized cafeteria, basketball courts, sand pit volleyball, and the corporate pastime, Foosball. We also have on-site DVD rentals, dry cleaning, convenience store, plus classes in personal, professional, and financial development. In the only-in-the-valley benefits category we also have on-site dental, car wash, oil change, massage, personal training, and *shudder* hair cuts.

If you are a talented Flash engineer, designer or both, and you are even maybe just kinda sorta thinking about looking for a new job, let me know. We really do have a wide variety of positions open, and besides, I just like getting to know my fellow Flash folks.

If you aren’t sure what I’m talking about, read about Adobe’s acquisition of Macromedia.

The evangelism is largely going to center around Flash as it is simply most ubiquitous and feature-rich solution on the market. However, as new technologies emerge, I will get to explore these alternate avenues as well.

I’m very sad to leave my current team, but am excited about the new possibilities. I may not get as much Mario Kart in with Trixie, chi chi, peanut and scotty McSott-Scott, but I will still harass them on a regular basis. The transition is already going smoothly so it looks like work on IMVironments continue on its merry way.