Christian developed GeoMaker as a side project using PHP and several Yahoo developer libraries (including YQL and YUI). Although in its initial stages, GeoMaker currently allows users to input text or a URL (e.g., http://icant.co.uk/geomaker/index.php?url=http://news.yahoo.com) to be ge-enriched. Subsequently, a Yahoo Map is output, including code for copying pasting the map on to your favorite site or blog. As a bonus, GeoMaker also outputs the geo-enriched location

That’s because in the last 24 hours Twitter quietly increased the limit from 100 to 150 requests per hour (as seen in the update Twitter made to their developer wiki shown below). For a site that has had significant uptime issues in the past, hopefully this is a sign that they can control the firehose.

For a Twitter developer it might mean a little tweak to your code. It is important to keep track of the requests that get sent out, or you’ll risk being blacklisted if you attempt to request beyond the limit. You can also get the requests remaining from the Twitter API without being “charged” for a request. High volume applications can request “whitelisting” which, if approved, increases the limit to 20,000 requests per hour.

The update to the rate limit does not effect the search API, which was already “quite a bit higher” than 150 per hour. Twitter does not publish the search limit, but recommends watching for a 503 error, a sign you need to throttle back.

With the increase to the rate limit, perhaps it’s time to

These bits of data come from the New York Times visualization of more than 3,000 homicides over seven years. The crimes are plotted on a map with custom tiles, with tiny markers denoting individual crimes. Rollover a marker and you see the details, such as the race and age of those involved.

You can drill down to see the murders by certain categories. In these circumstances the markers change colors based on the meta-data. For example, the screenshot shows weapons used: green for firearm, orange for knife and purple for other.

The Times has found a way to visualize what would otherwise be a spreadsheet of data in a meaningful way. What does a newspaper get out of this? For one, news stories, at least one so far. And they’re asking for tips from readers exploring the map.

This type of interactive visualization of crime data is popular mashup theme and there are now 44 crime mashups in our directory.

While it helps with reporting, the Times’ site even stands out as a mashup. It is subtle, showing mounds of data in

One big obstacle to SaaS vendors getting their applications adopted more widely is that so many of them don’t offer open APIs. Offering APIs is crucial for vendors to get their applications supported by channel partners and for customers looking to integrate SaaS offerings with legacy applications…

“It’s stunning to me the number of SaaS companies that don’t even consider an API as part of the development cycle,” says Treb Ryan, CEO of OpSource, a company that mainly helps SaaS vendors deliver their offerings to businesses but is also now extending its services to enterprises running their own clouds. “Lord knows two Web developers in a garage know to put out an API. [For SaaS vendors not doing this it's] killing them.”

This in turn