(Why / Comparison) Selecting & Configuring A Location Service
By Kevin on Thursday, 15 January 2015
Posted in General Issues
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Looking for information on the back-end Settings->"Location Service":

  1. What are the tradeoffs (i.e. UI/UX / accuracy / function / use cases) for ES users between choosing Google Maps, Google Places, and Foursquare?

  2. What are the tradeoffs (i.e. cost / resource usage / standardization ) for ES site admins between choosing Google Maps, Google Places, and Foursquare?
Hello Eileen,

The Service Providers is used when ES trying to get the data of the current location. As you can see here, the only different is then accuracy of the output retrieved from the different providers: http://screen.stackideas.com/2015-01-15_1332.png . There is no different in UI/UX.
Nik Faris
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Thursday, 15 January 2015 13:34
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Hey Nick, thanks for taking the time to make the side-by-side comparison for me, I don't have to check that out now

I also found two great sources comparing the providers services. From what I can tell the biggest differentiator between Google, FourSquare, and Yelp was that Google hadn't been emphasizing local businesses although that has apparently changed as they're now offering the ability to search for and discover places and local businesses around their current location --- I don't know if that's exposed via the API search or not.

Here's a pro and con for Google and FourSquare location services API ('2013 vintage).
Here's a recent comparative look at the "local" emphasis in location services.
Kevin
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Thursday, 15 January 2015 22:49
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Hello Eileen,

Thanks! Great information there. Really appreciate it. Yes, the different is mostly the result we get from these providers.
Nik Faris
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Friday, 16 January 2015 13:03
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