Reuse of API from Yahoo

Yahoo is a nice alternative service to Google Maps for displaying maps on your website or service. Amongst its benefits:

• it’s super easy to set up, as we’ll show below
• it requires an “application key”, but once you have this you can run on any domain. GMaps requires a per-domain key, which means that if your deploying to multiple domains — for example, if you have a http://user.example.com type site — you’re suddenly going to find yourself with an intractable problem
• it plays moderately well with YUI conceptually, though it doesn’t seem to use the same code base. UPDATE: you have to do hacks to work with YUI. Sigh.

Note that Yahoo provides several APIs for maps, the AJAX API we’re using here, an API for Flash/Actionscript and a REST API for getting map images. There all different, so make sure you’re not reading the wrong docs for what you’re doing.
I’ve created an example map application which displays a map, the current lat/lon and zoom level, and lets the map position to be adjusted by editing those same values. If you’d like to get started with the Yahoo AJAX maps API:

• get an application key – do not reuse mine or anyone else’s please
  
• copy the code below to “map.html” in favorite hosting environment — it should even work off your disk
• add your application key in the appropriate place
• run, enjoy, modify