How can I automatically plot markers for addresses on a Google or OpenStreetMap?

Question

I have a list of UK addresses and would like to plot them on a google or openstreetmap (I dont mind which).

Is there a way to render a batch of addresses on a map with dots to represent the location (rather then the standard marker).

To make things slightly more complex, I would like to change the colour and size of some markers.

The data source is a street address including postcode and a marker type (size, color).

Does anyone know of a site, script, process to achieve this?

The geographic region will be a suburb so it is quite a small area.

Answer 1

You can use the Google Geocoding service to spin through your addresses and translate them to latitude/longitude values that you can plot on a map. You make HTTP requests to http://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/geocode to get back JSON (or XML) responses with the data you need.

Once you have geocoded all your addresses you can use the standard Google Maps API to create render your locations as markers on a map. You can customize the look of your markers by specifying the appropriate options when you create your google.maps.marker objects.