The edit api page has a sample html / javascript code that you can put on your server to display a "Hello World" type application that displays a map.
I had some issues, which I've noted above
- The api key needs to be surrounded in quotes
- The first time I loaded the page, I got a bunch of errors because I didn't expand the bottom section before I copied the code out of the editor with the "copy" button
Once I fixed these issues, I got a pretty map of highway 1 in Malibu. Hooray!