Select lists as a web service?! Really?
Why would any website administrator or developer want to 'outsource' something as simple as a country list to a web service?
It sounds like a valid question. Implementing these isn't rocket science, and there are a load of sites with detailed instructions on how this can be achieved with a bit of jQuery, HTML, serverside code (whatever flavour) and some mysql data dumps. I began this process recently when needing a set of dynamic country- state (county for some places) - city dropdowns for a site I was working on. Although there's some great code snippets out there being offered graciously (and freely!) by fellow developers, I wondered why we're all re-inventing the wheel.
Sure, it only take 30 mins or so to import a few tables and copy & paste a bit of client-side code and a few serverside functions, but aren't there thousands of us all doing the same thing every day? Not only is this the set-up of this a waste of time, but we underestimate the burden of keeping this stored data accurate.
Countries go in and out of existence (many of the sql dumps in the how-to sites had former entities still included), and their regions and cities even more so! Why are we making this an individual job for every website owner in the world?
And this is how Geodata Solutions by Netamity was born. We figured that we'd maintain the data to ensure that country, state and city lists are kept up to date. We'd also maintain population data to ensure that you can order and filter your lists for maximum user convenience. And we'd provide a Dropdown Generator service which will allow you to generate the code you need to copy and paste into your forms. You can now add country, state and city ajax-driven lists to your site within minutes, and know that the location they display will always be kept up to date. One less boring job for you to do.
As a new concept, we've much to learn, and we'd like to know if this service is right for you. If not, why not? And if so, how could it be even better?
Do let us how we do...
We've included an example dropdown list set through Geodata Solutions below for you to try out. If you'd like to Country, State or City dropdowns to your site, then go to geodata.solutions , and keep in touch with us to help improve the service for everyone.