New Mapzen Updates Make Editing Smoother and Faster

We’ve taken on board a lot of feedback and made lots of fixes and updates to Mapzen which we think will make a significant difference to your editing experience. They’re aimed at helping you map more by providing even greater flexibility within Mapzen.

Here’s what we’ve added:

1. Easier to work in areas with lots of land use

It’s now a lot easier to work more accurately with land use and other areas, with the ability to turn their filling on or off to provide a clearer view of what you are putting a perimeter around when viewing the satellite imagery or background images.

2. Easier to align roads to satellite imagery

A new Hide/ Show Elements button has been added to the bottom of the editing window allowing you to quickly turn on / off elements to better see the background objects.  This is really useful when trying to align roads to satellite imagery.

3. More control when adding lines and areas

A much requested feature that you’ve all been waiting for.  Now you can press ESC to cancel any editing made to shapes of lines and press ‘Enter’ to end editing with line types.  This is really useful when adding new roads.

4. Mac Users: no more annoying zoom in / zoom out

If you have a magic mouse from Apple or use a MacBook touchpad you might have experienced sudden jumps in zoom level.  If you have suffered this problem, you can now disable the ‘scroll’ function to prevent the map from accidentally zooming in or out.

We hope you’ll find these updates useful – please continue to email us feedback, it’s incredibly useful to help us evolve and improve Mapzen. Here’s how you can get in touch

• Leave a post in the Mapzen forums
• Report a bug on the Mapzen issue tracker
• Send us a mail to mapzen@cloudmade.com
• Get in touch with Nick, Yuliya or Anton through Mapzen

The next Mapzen blog post will look at some new features coming up in the April release of Mapzen Beta.  Until then, if you don’t have a Mapzen account already, you can sign up for one and start using Mapzen here – happy mapping!

March 10th, 2010 - Posted by Paul Jarratt in cartography, cloudmade, maps, mapzen, news, openstreetmap, products | | 0 Comments

Making Mapzen Even Easier and More Fun to Use

Its just over a month since we launched Mapzen – the easy to use OpenStreetMap editor. Since then, the intuitive user interface and focus on ease of use has caught the attention of users and the media (see New Scientist, Mac World, ZDNet and our own Press Zone). Over the holidays we released a set of updates to Mapzen that address many of the comments early users have made. Here’s a summary of the updates that were made in the “Mapzen Beta Uhniv” release, on the 24th December 2009:

Bug fixes

One of the biggest problems reported by some Mapzen users was with saving data – the annoying “Oops – a big error has occurred” problem was our highest priority for this release. We tracked down all of the known causes of this problem and they are now be fixed for good. We also added an automatic reporting system – so Mapzen will tell us if it incurs any problems when saving or editing data. Other bug fixes included more reliable loading of satellite imagery and more reliable rendering of lines – stopping the problems that occasionally made lines disappear.

Giving you more space to work

No-one likes working in a small, constrained screen space, so we increased the size of the work area in Mapzen:

More objects to edit

There are thousands of different types of map features in OpenStreetMap – each often with several variations and combinations. WIth Mapzen we boil all of this choice down to the features and attributes you need for mapping. With each release of Mapzen we’ll add some new map features, modify others and even remove features or attributes that user do not find useful. In this release of Mapzen we added loads of new features, including:

• New icons for a whole load of exciting features including funicular railways, gondolas and drag lifts – just in time for the skiing season
• New icons for boundaries including city walls, fences, hedge lines and gates
• New landuse types including scrub
• New POIs including drinking water and recycling

New features make map editing in ski resorts easy

Another hugely requested feature was clearer one-way arrows for roads, also updated in this release:

Coming up next

The next release of Mapzen will focus on improving usability – particularly the way in which users interact with roads. For example, we know you find it annoying to have to click once to select a node and again to drag it when you are re-shaping a road, so we’ll be updating this behaviour so that to make it easier and quicker for you to drag and re-align roads – something that all the TIGER editors out there spend a lot of time doing.

We’ve also heard that users in areas with a landuse shapes can find it hard to edit roads. To solve this problem we’ll be adding controls that let you turn off landuse – making it far easier to edit roads in these areas. We’ll post some screenshots as soon as we have working internal versions.

What else?

There are lots of exciting features in the queue for Mapzen from speed enhancements to improved hints to merging of ways to easier selection of map features. We’ll be releasing a poll in the next few weeks that will let you choose which features you want to see implemented first – so stay tuned.

In the meantime you can leave feedback about Mapzen or report bugs at the Mapzen Issue Tracker or you can get in touch via email.

January 4th, 2010 - Posted by Nick Black in Uncategorized, cloudmade, mapzen, news, openstreetmap, products | | 4 Comments

Mapzen POI Collector is now in the App Store

CloudMade’s Mapzen POI Collector – an iPhone application that makes it really easy to add places of interest to OpenStreetMap is now available for free download from the App Store. Click here to find out more.

Union Square, San Francisco in Mapzen POI Collector

Mapzen POI Collector’s fast, easy to use POI menu

Stay tuned for more Mapzen news coming soon.

November 26th, 2009 - Posted by Nick Black in iPhone, mapzen, openstreetmap, products | | 8 Comments

Putting the Developer in Charge

Earlier on this year a smart VC, who multiple times has competed successfully against Google, told me that Google is generally willing to act as an “irrational economic player”. It’s willing to destroy value just so others can’t get at it, even if it means destroying value for itself.

Google just announced that it will offer navigation. Navigation has so far captured 70%+ of the $2 billion mapping market. The bad news for established navigation players like Tele Atlas and Navteq is that this will erode the value of navigation, just like the value of maps have been eroded. The good news for those players is that Google has now tipped its hand and shown that it’s willing to compete against the very ecosystem that it has been nurturing over the past couple of years.

Google’s strategy is to leverage maps, including navigation, to extend its current search franchise into local search. We’ve believed from day one of CloudMade that contextual search, using location data and some knowledge about the user (for example which app he/she is using) creates much more valuable CPM/CPC/CPAs. If you’re an advertiser or a merchant, you will pay more per impression if you know someone is a mountain biker and is near the bicycle mega store you own.

Google betting on one-size-fits all model
Google is betting on building a horizontal, local search franchise. I know that sounds like an oxymoron, but please read on, it gets clearer. Google is building a one-size-fits-all set of services around mapping, and will serve the masses with those. Think about Google Maps, Latitude or Earth. They are horizontal one-size-fits-all web apps with little or no segmentation. Everyone uses the same app.

Meanwhile, in the process of building out end-user applications rather than sticking to being a platform player, Google is causing considerable collateral damage. Its move into the territory normally occupied by mobile operators, OEMs and small, medium and large developers is turning the marketplace against itself. The honeymoon is over and the do-no-evil days have ended. Google has declared any monetizable pocket in tech a target, including the key franchises of Apple, Microsoft, the mobile operators and now also mobile application developers. The problem with Google’s approach is, the value is not in horizontal services, but in leveraging the democratizing effect of the app stores to use the 100,000+ vertical apps as a way to divide the market into tiny segments and let them flourish and gain traction.

CloudMade believes vertical apps will inherently nano-segment the market
Most of the impressions that will hit consumers, and most searches that are contextually and location oriented, will occur through vertical apps. Take the mountain biker example. Where will I be more likely to respond if I want to a) navigate my mountain bike though a new trail and b) click on that ad from the bicycle mega store? A horizontal Google app, or a well crafted, vertical app written by a focused developer who understands my special interests? We believe the latter. We believe the mountain biking savvy, app developing expert who knows the hidden trails in his/her community will be better at providing relevance to local mountain bikers.

As I speak to mobile operators and handset manufacturers about the CloudMade business, it’s clear that most of the players understand the value of their immense reach, and want to pick long-term partners with whom they can build a franchise in local search, local advertising and local geo services.

It’s clear that Google’s latest move has served as a lighting rod for clarity in the value chain. Over the past days I have spoken to people throughout the ecosystem. So far, the uncertainty about what Google was doing has actually caused a lot of mobile operators, handset manufacturers and app developers to take a wait-and-see attitude. Now, with Google showing their hand, and making it clear that it’s willing to compete directly with substantial parts of the eco system to get at the local search market, we’re seeing that the wait-and-see is over. With Google choosing to go it alone rather than cooperate with the ecosystem, the ground rules have been laid down, and the competitive landscape is clear.

So what are we doing at CloudMade?
We’re building out our traction in the vertical mobile application area, signing developers within key categories that we believe will drive massive volume. This is a real micro-segmented approach, aimed at driving traffic to thousands of narrow verticals. We’re already seeing this scale.

Local, relevant ads: We’re jumping the learning curve on Location Based Advertising and Sponsored POIs. We’ll shortly be offering developers, mobile operators and handset manufacturers a revenue share on Sponsored POIs and ads that they include in their apps. This is big news to developers, who so far have had to depend on the modest revenues from selling apps at $0.99, $1.99 etc.

Data Marketplace: We’re building a massive marketplace for geo data. In fact, in a few weeks we have our “opening day” at the CloudMade Data Marketplace, the Turkish Bazar from which developers can choose a variety of content that they can mash into their maps. This will result in more app diversity, deeper functionality and even completely new types of vertical apps.

Offering for operators and handset manufacturers: CloudMade has created a super interesting set of propositions for mobile operators and handset manufacturers. We’re doing rev share deals with them where we work side-by-side to build franchises in the local geo spatial arena. We offer them onboard maps (built into their devices) and offboard maps (loaded from our servers), we offer them navigation jointly with our navigation partners and we offer up relationships with our many vertical app developers. For Tier 1, 2 and 3 operators and handset manufacturers this is turning out to be very compelling. The big differentiator is that the operators get to decide what the services look like, they get to brand them and they get to make money from them. That is as opposed to the alternative, which is to take someone else’s services, accept that they are all branded by someone else, who also pockets the ad revenues from them.

We’re focusing on making maps look the way the merchants and developers want them to look. Through CloudMade’s Style Editor anyone, even non-technical people, can produce advanced, custom maps that reflect the brand and identity of their company or their customers company. We’ve found that many, especially those with no yellow in their corporate identity, prefer this to a one-size-fits-all yellow map.

Navigation: We’re continuing to ramp up our work with key players in the turn-by-turn navigation field to increase the scope for navigation solutions. We are building assets to help drive the verticalization of the field, so we see custom navigation for different verticals. Again, CloudMade doesn’t believe in one-size-fits-all. We think different types of navigation will require different types of apps. For example, if I’m hiking in the mountains I don’t care about roads. I want to navigate hiking trails, be directed to places where I can fill my water bottle, and I want to know where the vista points are.

Last, but not least, the most important component of CloudMade’ approach.

Tools, tools, tools: CloudMade is focusing a lot of effort on the tools side. We believe that the best way we can serve the community of mappers and developers is to put all the control in their hands. We’ve demonstrated this through our efforts already, for example with our iPhone libraries. We’re similarly putting the control of Location Based Ads and Sponsored POIs into the hands of developers. Put yourself in the shoes of the vertical app developer. You know better than anyone else how your constituents want to be advertised to, what ads they want (and don’t want) to see and how to place those apps in your app.

Similarly, we’re readying a suite of tools that makes mapping easier, faster and more powerful.

CloudMade’s web based Mapzen tool, and Mapzen POI Collector for iPhone will be available shortly. This suite of tools enables us to further serve the 180,000 person large OpenStreetMap community that is building the most detailed, finely textured and accurate map of the world. The community was founded by the founders of CloudMade, and most members of the CloudMade team are active members of the OpenStreetMap community. The map we’re building in the community is stunning in it’s detail. It’s essentially the Wikipedia of maps. After all, who knows better how to map a community than people who live in the community. Just look at this Stanford example: http://bit.ly/3HJiRh vs. http://bit.ly/1i2N8m.

The Mapzen suite enables us to bridge the needs of app developers, who serve as a proxy for consumers in a given vertical segment, and the mappers, who are members of local communities or specialists in a certain type of mapping (e.g. mountain biking trails). Bridging the consumers needs for maps and the mappers’ desire to create maps that truly reflect their local community will result in mobile and web applications that both feature better maps and be more attractive to users.

So what’s the bottom line?
Over the next twelve months, we will see hundreds of thousands of vertical apps use maps and location services to better serve consumers with data about where they are, where they are going, how they get there and what is surrounding them at their location. We will see mappers collect map data that is highly relevant to local, narrow communities. We will see owners of diverse datasets make their data available though the Data Marketplace. In turn, we will see app developers jump on the opportunity and leverage the map data and Data Marketplace datasets into highly targeted, compelling and enchanting apps. Many will choose to monetize the apps through a combination of app store revenues as well as carefully selected Location Based Advertising and Sponsored POIs.

If you are a developer that has yet to use our platform, get started here: http://bit.ly/Vjdcp (or if you’re an iPhone developer, go here: http://bit.ly/2IRZA3).” If you are with a larger company with a need for a mapping provider that does not compete with you email me at juha@cloudmade.com.

October 30th, 2009 - Posted by Emma Williamson in Uncategorized, cloudmade, developers, iPhone, mapzen, news, products, style editor | | 8 Comments

Tesco’s troubles and reverse geocoding

Talk about coincidence. Just as I was about to share a couple of numbers from our geocoding traffic report, someone sent me a link to an interesting read by Nick Lansley of Tesco. In a nutshell, he, as well as dozens (hundreds?) of other iPhone developers have suddenly found themselves cut off from Google geocoding. Read more here.

Back to our latest traffic report. I thought it was interesting enough to share some of it with everyone. While it is expected that all of our products show usage growth over time, the usage of geocoding has simply skyrocketed lately. According to our traffic report, the number of geocoding requests has increased more than ten-fold over the last four weeks, without any sign that the trend is changing. I am also quite impressed by adoption of version 2 of our geocoding API. Given that most requests come from mobile applications that have necessarily longer update cycles, the new API’s 30% share of traffic in only three weeks is really a large number. The most popular request type? Reverse geocoding.

In the meantime, we’ve been working on better support for EU-style addressing, which will be available real soon. Also in the works, fast and accurate US addressing which will be brought online by the end of next month. More to come…

October 30th, 2009 - Posted by in api, cloudmade, iPhone, products | | 2 Comments

Calling all OpenStreetMappers! Get Ready for Mapzen – editing and adding POIs just got easier

We’ve just released the Alpha version of Mapzen, our OpenStreetMap community editing tool which lets anyone easily contribute to the map, and are actively recruiting people to help test and provide feedback on it. To be a part of this program please sign up here.

We’re only able to handle a certain number of Alpha testers so if we’re unable to accept you to the program don’t worry, Mapzen Beta will be available for everyone later on this year.

CloudMade has developed Mapzen to help reduce the time it takes to create and edit OpenStreetMap so you can spend more time doing what you like best, mapping. It’s the first community mapping tool that let’s anyone easily contribute to OpenStreetMap.

Here’s a quick overview of some features:

• Intuitive user interface and workflow dramatically reduce editing time
• Graphical menus mean no more searching for obscure tags
• Multi level undo and save modes mean no more fear of ruining the map
• Built with social networks in mind so sharing mapping experiences with Facebook and Twitter friends is simple
And much more….

We’ve also been busy working on Mapzen POI Collector for iPhone which will be in the Apple App Store in a few weeks time, so make sure you sign up here to be informed when it’s available. Adding places of interest (POIs) to OpenStreetMap on location is now a simple 5-click process and there are hundreds of categories to choose from, everything from trees, volcanoes and gas stations to ATMs, vets, picnic spots and aerial way stations, so most interests should be covered. Let us know if there’s something you’re crying out for and we’ll do our best to get it into the next release.

More updates coming soon…

October 7th, 2009 - Posted by Emma Williamson in Uncategorized, cartography, maps, mapzen, news, openstreetmap, products | | 8 Comments

Your Future is Customized – State of the Map Presentation from CloudMade

In July this year, 250 of the leading lights in community mapping and geo application development gathered in Amsterdam for the annual OpenStreetMap Foundation conference The State of the Map. Video and audio recordings form the three day conference are being processed one by one by a dedicated team of volunteers who recently published the video of Nick Black’s talk: “Your Future is Customized”.

The talk asks why most current users of geodata experience maps through one of two ways: in car sat navs, or online mapping portals and looks towards a future of app stores, specialized map data and geo applications that match the exact needs of consumers.

Enable your applications with CloudMade – Nick Black (CloudMade) from State of the Map 2009 on Vimeo.

Follow along with the slides from the presentation:

August 28th, 2009 - Posted by in api, cloudmade, developers, geodata, openstreetmap, products, tools | | 1 Comments

Mapzen: An easy to use editor for OpenStreetMap

At the recent State of the Map conference we unveiled our plans for an OpenStreetMap editor: Mapzen. Mapzen is a web based map editing tool that will make it far easier for new-commers to OpenStreetMap to get started editing and creating maps. Lets take a look at some of Mapzen’s features:

In Application Tutorials

No one likes searching wikis and web pages to learn how to use a tool. With Mapzen, you learn as you map. In application tutorials teach you to map, step by step.

Graphical Menus

Many new mappers are confused by the large number of different road, track and point of interest types. Mapzen has an intuitive graphical menu, letting you pick out different features to add to the map.

Context Sensitive Menus

After choosing which object you want to add to the map, the next hurdle is knowing which attributes to add. Mapzen’s context sensitive menu prompts you to add only the attributes that are needed for a particular object.

Specialized Junction Editing

Modeling complex junctions, with one-ways and turn restrictions can be difficult, with so many tags and relations to keep track of. Mapzen gives mappers a graphical interface that makes modeling junctions quick and fun.

Find Out More

Mapzen is currently under active development. We’re going to be carrying out user testing over the summer – if you’d like to take part, please mail mapzen@cloudmade.com.

Mapzen is open source (GPLv2) – if you are a developer, you can get hold of the source from here (right click in the window).

If you have any feature requests, or would like any more information, please send us a mail.

July 22nd, 2009 - Posted by Nick Black in openstreetmap, products, tools | | 15 Comments

Upcoming London Events: MiniBar June, GeoMob, London iPhone Developers Group

There are a load of great events happening over the next few weeks. Here are some highlights:

MiniBar June – Friday 26th June 2009

London’s favorite Friday tech meetup, MiniBar, returns to the Truman Brewery this Friday. A great way to unwind after a long, hot week.

GeoMob – 30th June 2009

GeoMob is a relatively new event that has picked up an impressive follow amongst London geo and mobile developers. This month’s event is being hosted by the British Computer Society and features talks on mobile advertising from AdFonic and local search from Spoonfed. Needless to say, the CloudMade team will be there en-masse

iPhone Developers’ Group – London and South-East

If you missed WWDC and want to find out what all the fuss is about, the July 8th meeting of the London and South East iPhone Developers’ Group is not to be missed. CloudMade will be talking about the abilities and limitations of MapKit, CoreLocation and our own iPhone Maps Library.

To hear more about upcoming CloudMade events, follow CloudMade and Nick on twitter.

June 24th, 2009 - Posted by Nick Black in cloudmade, developers, events, iPhone, products, talks | | 0 Comments

Fly Through Berlin

CloudMade partners, Cartotype have produced this nice animation that shows a fly-through of Berlin. Cartotype produce a range of libraries that render maps across different mobile platforms:

Cartotype have been experimenting with CloudMade’s Vector Server which can stream map data to any connected device where it can be rendered on the fly. There’s a lot of new features planned for the vector server, including multiple outputs formats (XML, JSON, OSM) and a fully featured API that will let you select which parts of the map data are returned to the client. You can see all of the feature requests here.

If you like what you see from Cartotype, you can hear them talk at the State of the Map conference which is being held from the 10th – 12th July 2009 in Amsterdam. Click here for more details.

June 15th, 2009 - Posted by Nick Black in api, cartography, cloudmade, developers, geodata, news, products | | 0 Comments