690No WMS in Google Static Maps API?

That Google Maps can't hope to support the flexibility of the full WMS interface so they have to provide this cut down wanabe service with a nasty API key hacked in?

Either that (that Google can't design or engineer maps for the Web) or that when it comes to street maps WMS == YAGNI.

And yet in a blog post you referred to only the other day we see people pointing out just this deficiency of Google Maps - http://blog.everyblock.com/2008/feb/18/maps/. If all you want is to server up static images of your maps the Google maps is the way to do it, but as soon as you want something more complex you are going to wish you'd stuffed all that data into a nice standards compliant WMS server from the start so that all your client development work isn't wasted.

No, according to that post the EveryBlock developers break from Google over cartography, not over map service design. If you check out their maps you'll see fixed zoom levels and tiles: http://nyc.everyblock.com/streets/brooklyn/kent-ave/473-493/map/ They are using TileCache, which – while it uses the WMS parameterization of what you want in an image (something WMS gets right) – is not exactly a ringing endorsement of WMS, the protocol. Notice that they are using named map styles? That's more or less the Google Maps approach too: SLD also == YAGNI for applications of this sort. I know this must feel like bashing, but the OGC has impressed a distorted (and now obsolete) view of web services on the GIS community. I'm trying to educate and perhaps even clear up a bit of the distortion.

When I look at the actual map requests it looks like a straight WMS request to me, right down to the annoying OGC specific error format. So if I want to view their maps in my own client (e.g. uDig) at any scale I like I can, if I really wanted to I could probably even work out how to add my own SLD to it but that clearly isn't required for this application and may well not be supported by their stack (I've never used mapnik so I can't say). While I understand where you are coming from Sean, and I agree with a lot of what you say distorting applications like this which are OGC based to support your argument does nothing to convince those of us who'd prefer to see neogeographers work with the OGC to fix things instead of sniping from the sidelines.

Ian, I'm not trying to convince you. I'm writing to dispel the hype around OGC web services. Hype like this (not particularly egregious, just fresh), in which there is not even a hint that there is anything wrong with the WxS architecture. On the other hand, I will give the OGC due credit for any effort to develop standards more fit for the Web. Would be easier to recognize the efforts if they were more in the open, I must say.