When GoogleMaps first appeared, everyone (well, people like RancidBacon or libgmail) were off figuring out the API and how to use the basic GoogleMaps. After GoogleMaps opened up it’s API the newest trend is to now write wrappers around the API to make it easier to use. To me, this may seem that GoogleAPI could have used some better designing from the get-go.

• XMaps
• MGeocoder – provides geocoding (location lookup by name)
• Google Mapki – resource of other GoogleAPI resources
• MapBuilder.net – builds API calls for you