The SimpleGeo post talks about finding coffee shops near a user's coordinates (reverse geocoding)... isn't this what the Google Places API does? Or would the AUP of the Places API limit developers where SimpleGeo would not?

Google Places API: http://code.google.com/apis/maps/documentation/places/

Google Places gives all business for a given location and radius (you can then grab expanded listings of whatever's found), but not specific businesses like coffee shops, however this kind of functionality will probably come soon, and for server side lookups.

The closest Places gets now to a specific lookup for a business in a certain location is just on the client side after manual keyword entry, using the GoogleBar: http://code.google.com/apis/maps/documentation/javascript/v2... (type coffee)

I can only say that as a provocative statement to start a conversation going and get to the meat, its pretty awesome.

Is there a video available of this exchange?