The Google Maps API is a showcase example of the Web 2.0 development paradigm, designed to be invitingly simple for third-party developers to incorporate dynamic mapping services into Web applications. Interest in Google Maps is so strong that it arguably sparked the mashup phenomenon, along with websites such as gmapsmania.com, which highlights some exciting applications using the mapping API in conjunction with a variety of other data sources. Beginning Google Maps Applications with Rails and Ajax takes a developers perspective, showing how to integrate mapping features into their Rails-driven Web applications. The book shows how to draw upon a variety of data sources such as the U.S. Census Bureaus TIGER/Line data and Googles own geocoding feature to build comprehensive geocoding services for mapping many locations around the world. The book includes guided examples demonstrating how to encourage user interaction such as pinpointing map locations, adding comments, and building community-driven maps.