How do I find a place of business from geolocation information?

Question

Let's say I'm just wondering around with my cellphone and I want to know exactly which place of business I'm in. This would seem to be easy, but I don't see away to do it. It's possible to reverse geocode but this gives an address range. Google doesn't seem to have http base local search using local information, because you could kind of guess from the local search or points of interest. It needs to be through an http API, not an ajax driven map. Is there a way to do this?

Answer 1

You might look at GeoAPI, which lets you search for businesses near a particular lat/lon coordinate and returns detailed information about the business (name, type, hours, etc.). It's a simple JSON API with good documentation and examples.

There's likely more APIs out there for local business data -- which I personally would love to hear about if people want to add them as answers to this question or comments on my answer. What's your favorite? What are the advantages and disadvantages?