The Fubra Blog
Google Maps Free Alternatives
We love Google products much like why we love Apple here at Fubra (apart from those who don’t believe in the great Steve Jobs), they work and work well. But recently they made a change to their Maps API that caused us to rethink our mapping strategy drastically.
Since October, Google introduce a clause in their usage terms that states that if you do go over 25000 user sessions a day then they can start charging you a fee for use. Not such a big deal some may say and Google did note in their developer blog…
Based on current usage, only the top 0.35% of sites will be affected by these limits, meaning that the Google Maps API will remain free for the vast majority of sites.
On the usage statics from a post last year on their blog that means 1225 sites will be affected (probably more).
One of our sites, World Airport Codes, is one of those sites. I suppose it’s nice to be thought of as one of the 0.35%, but not so good that the costs of using Google Maps on this particular site would be more than it earns in advertising revenue.
So our search for a replacement started!
Investing in Solar Energy
Today we are happy to announce the launch of our latest investment: Marble Solar.
Marble Solar is a new business dedicated to the design and build of commercial and residential solar power panel systems. It is a collaboration between Fubra Limited and the directors of the Marble Group, a construction firm we have invested in.
Working with our friends at Bytewire over the past 2 months we have built, what I believe to be, one of the best solar PV estimation tools available online.
Step 1a – Enter your postcode
Step 1b – Draw your roof
Step 2 – View estimated income
Step 3 – Book a survey appointment
The estimator allows you to draw an outline of your roof on Google Maps, and select the orientation. It will then propose a suitably sized system for your roof, and uses either SAP 2005, or NASA solar irradiation data along with panel efficiency information to estimate the amount of electricity you could generate from the system over the course of the year. This data is combined with financial data such as Feed In Tariff rates and some assumptions on future price inflation to give you a projection of the amount of income and savings the system may generate over it’s lifetime.
For me, it’s great to see what our network of small companies can achieve when we work together.