Fixed Stickymap Today

Version 2 of the Google Maps API was deprecated back in 2010 - over 8 years ago! And yet for all that time, my creaking old website, stickymap.com remained functional.

I built Stickymap as an undergrad and during my first couple years out of school. In fact, I developed it further in 2008 during a multi-week leave from work similar to what I'm doing now! Stickymap was all about "sharing your neighborhood". It was developed in the 2000s - the era of web 2.0, wikis, universal broadband. Desktop and laptop computing reigned supreme. The idea was to have everyone share their locations on a map, and contribute to this great resource.

Many things have come after it - notably Foursquare - but I still love to look back on it, which is why I like to keep it up.

Well, a month or so ago it stopped worked. Google said "8 years is enough time - everyone has to get onto version 3 of the API by now". Why do they care? Well - they can charge you for version 3 for one thing. It's unclear how much I'll be charged - hopefully zero for a non-trafficked archive site.

The interesting part of today was going through a 12-year old javascript codebase - written by an amateur (me at the time) without any of the frameworks which exist today. Is this workable?

Turned out that I was able to figure out Google Maps v3 in a day. I breathed life back into the site. For now, you can explore the map and see what people posted in the past. Adding to the map and the local search feature will have to wait for another time.

I slipped in some Amazon affiliate ads - in case I get a lot of traffic and Google starts charging, I'm going to need a way to pay!