By nilashis on

Does anyone know of a module that uses the Google Places API?

I am working on a website where I would like business owners to create account with my site. It will be so much more easier if they can just paste a Google Places webpage link and all the information could be ported from Google Places to my website automatically using the Google Places API.

Does anything like this exist?

I found something...a sandbox project...but there's nothign there yet: http://drupal.org/sandbox/lukaswhite/1189440

ANyone aware of something like this?

Is there an API that can actually import information from facebook Places webpage?

Comments

ryan258’s picture

ryan258 commented

I would really be interested in helping move this concept along, anyone else out there interested?

What I'm thinking is that if there was a way to take Google reviews and place them in a block/node/view whatever that small businesses could really make use of the testimonial section that actually offers some legitimacy.

C'mon, having the average star score w/ # of reviews in the branding section would be some really compelling stuff.

If anyone has tooled around with Google Places API is this possible? Or do I need to lobby Google for such extension?

greta_drupal’s picture

greta_drupal commented

I am researching this now, as well. Google Places or Yelp. Problem with Yelp, at least, is that it delivers the results in one chunk (block); so, you cannot intersperse it with non-Yelp listings. I was hoping to pull the desired Yelp data through Views (based on custom field with YelpID), but haven't seen how to do so -- no option to use PHP in output rewrite (D7).

Considering using a Computer Field to generate the Yelp pull code, with YelpID field embedded; but not sure how to integrate the Drupal field code into the Yelp pull code -- unfortunately not a PHP programmer. Otherwise, that option seemed promising.

Let's share anything we discover, huh.

http://ItsAboutTyme.com

lionsharz’s picture

lionsharz commented

Lukas' module is there - you need to git clone the repository. I haven't got it to work yet but it seems all you do is go to site config > Google Places > input the API key (as mentioned below you'll find that in the developer documenationhttps://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/places/#Authentication documentation).

There is another config for the module - Google Place Node. You need to enter some 'bar' input after the Foo but I don't know what that is - a node reference? I tried creating a node called "google-places" and entered that. Duplicate node entry. Tried entering the name of an uncreated node "new-places" and pointed my browser there, but no result - blank page

klucid’s picture

klucid commented

I would love a module for this. Has anybody gotten it to work yet?

Web Assistant’s picture

Web Assistant commented

I was wondering about the legalities of using the Google Places API to store Business information? There are two points made in the terms that I'm not sure about.

10.1.3 (b) No Pre-Fetching, Caching, or Storage of Content. You must not pre-fetch, cache, or store any Content, except that you may store: (i) limited amounts of Content for the purpose of improving the performance of your Maps API Implementation if you do so temporarily, securely, and in a manner that does not permit use of the Content outside of the Service; and (ii) any content identifier or key that the Maps APIs Documentation specifically permits you to store. For example, you must not use the Content to create an independent database of "places" or other local listings information.

10.2 (b) No Business, Residential, or Telephone Listings Services. You must not display any of the business listings Content provided by the Maps API(s) in any Maps API Implementation that has the primary purpose of making available business, residential address, or telephone directory listings.

Anyone have any thoughts about that?

user654’s picture

user654 commented

Hi,
I am interested in using the Places library for searching the nodes of my site inside an area and showing them in the map.
Is this prohibited or not?
Is this also possible with Places api?
thanks

stuwat’s picture

stuwat commented

Lukas's sandboxed module is for Drupal 6. I could really use something for Drupal 7.

klucid’s picture

klucid commented

Same here. I am willing to contribute to fund the project.

nilashis’s picture

nilashis commented

Probably obvious to most: Google Places is changing to Google+ Local pages now.

ryan258’s picture

ryan258 commented

Here's the current documentation on the Google Places API: https://developers.google.com/places/documentation/

Browsing through it still looks interesting and there's a really sweet tool in there for Local SEO. (Place Check-Ins).

But that's just what has me excited, the 5 basic requests are:

- Place Searches - Location based, what's in the users' proximity.
- Text Searches - Return a list of nearby results fetched with a text string.
- Return Details and Reviews
- *Check-ins - Users can check into your Place and those check ins boost your rankings. Google literally says this and there's not a whole lot they're just going to flat out say about their ranking factors. This is one of those rare times. I bet they're going to start marketing this more and more to get mobile users to know it exists.
- Place Reports - yay

So some of these are obviously geared toward mobile, but if we care about this module we're probably dealing with locally based business and are well aware how local and mobile just go hand-in-hand.

There seems to be a lot here, so if some of you are willing to look through the documentation to see what the API offers I think formulating some use cases would help us get this moving.

Wouldn't it be cool though if there was an entire suite of modules just there for all of Google's APIs? You think they would sponsor it since most of their APIs have a limit before a pricing plan.

jasonglisson’s picture

jasonglisson commented

Right now I'm just working on a simple block that will return reviews and stuff from a certain radius around a point that you define.

After that I'll expand this, and hopefully, others will pitch in because this is pretty immense.

This will feature a drop down of what you'd like to display in a block (ie reviews of hotels, restaurants, etc).

Any thoughts on a better idea for a first draft of this module?

So far I've got the a configuration page where you put your API key and a block being generated with some basic info.

user654’s picture

user654 commented

Hi,
have you created any sandbox project so as we can follow progress?
thanks!

TygrLili’s picture

TygrLili commented

...new thoughts on this?

I'm working on a size-able new website and though I'm fairly new to Drupal, I've fallen in love with it (being code-minded but living in the world of affiliate marketing, where WordPress is the undeserving king).

Basically, the website I'm working on needs to integrate with my Google Apps account -- and I have found some patchy ways to tie it in (really curious whether there's some reason I'm missing why Google's API isn't as prettily packaged as I tend to expect -- even the Sites app is vastly lacking)....But in any case, I would KILL for the ability to integrate my users' G+Local pages in my site, as my users are almost exclusively business owners.

Also, as I've only just started with Drupal, I'm unsure whether this would be the appropriate place to also suggest that even though I am, admittedly, a noob, I'm getting frustrated enough with what feels like way too many workarounds for my desired integration that I'm prepared to start planning my own. Any insight, thoughts, warnings, suggestions and help, etc. greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance!
~Nina MJ

user654’s picture

user654 commented

Any news on such a module?

jasonglisson’s picture

jasonglisson commented

I've started outlining how to integrate the Google Places API into Drupal 7 on my website:
http://www.jasonglisson.com/working-google-places-api-drupal-7-part-1

My blog post explains how to pull results from the API and display them in Drupal. I basically created a whole site around the API using Drupal 7.

I have a content type that has lat and long coordinates. Using those coordinates, I plotted the 10 nearest hotels and restaurants as well as displayed all of their information (address, phone number, website). The cool part was that I was able to display reviews of each hotel and restaurant as well as plot them on a map.

I used Views, Views PHP, the Locations module, and a few others.

After doing all of that work, I realized how useful it would be for a module. I've gotten a hand full of emails asking how I did certain things as well so it seems there isn't much documentation about this.

Let me know if you have questions. I'll help where ever I can.

user654’s picture

user654 commented

Using Google places api,will it be possible to search my own database.E.g. I have nodes in my database with longitude/latidue.I want to make queries like: "Returen all nodes that are inside London area".Is this possible to do?And ofcourse,is this easy? :)
thanks

kscheirer’s picture

kscheirer
Primary language English
Location Vallejo
commented

There is a module, take a look at Local Places, https://drupal.org/sandbox/traceyspencer/2002766.