Join us for a Hands-on Labs session at WWDC with our iPhone tech team – drop in or book an appointment

We’re at the InterContinental, adjacent to the Moscone Center (where WWDC is being held) from 7-11am this week, Wednesday through Friday and would love to speak to you about your app development. Get a fantastic free breakfast and lets talk tech.

Come speak to our engineering team about CloudMade maps, our iPhone SDK, Style Editor product, location-based ads, how to get routing and use geocoding in your apps. Also find out about the free premium support we’re offering to WWDC attendees.

You can book a meeting here, or simply drop by – we have a private room at the back right of the restaurant (Luce) on the ground floor of the InterContinental.

June 8th, 2010 - Posted by Paul Jarratt in Uncategorized | | 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

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

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

Join the Mapzen Community Panel to experience CloudMade’s exciting new mapping environment at a hands-on preview session

Join the Mapzen Community Panel and be the first to experience Mapzen – CloudMade’s new powerful and easy-to-use map making environment.

Over the next few weeks we’re inviting current and new Mapzen Community Panel members to take part in hands-on testing sessions of Mapzen. The sessions will be held at our London and Menlo Park offices and will give you the chance to be the first to experience this exciting new map making tool.

You don’t need to be a mapping expert to join the Mapzen Community Panel. In fact we’re looking for people with all levels of abilities, from experienced OpenStreetMap mappers, to total newbies. As a Mapzen Community Panel member you get early access to new Mapzen releases and the chance to take part in one-on-one hands on previews with the Mapzen team.

We know how busy you are and value your input so if you take part in a one on one session we will compensate you for your time and travel expenses (and you get to take home some exclusive CloudMade goodies). Most importantly, this is your opportunity to experience Mapzen and shape the future of an exciting new product.

We are particularly interested to talk to anyone who has used other OpenStreetMap editors in the past, but found them difficult or confusing to use.

To apply to join the Mapzen Community Panel and take part in either the London or Menlo Park testing sessions, click here.

London Session Times
Wednesday 19th August – 12.00-20.00
Thursday 20th August – 12.00-18.00

Menlo Park Session Times
These will take place in the week beginning 24th August. The dates will be updated here soon.

August 11th, 2009 - Posted by Emma Williamson in Uncategorized | | 2 Comments

Building the Map

Whether you saw it at State of the Map or in the posting below, many of you have seen and commented on Mapzen, CloudMade’s upcoming web-based mapping tool.  We’ve gotten a lot of good feedback from people on what they like and what they’d like to see.  I am pretty excited about it.  We hope that it will introduce more people into the OSM community, accelerate the growth of the map worldwide and also improve the quality of the map by making it easier to add the attributes that sometimes aren’t seen but really make the map work.

CloudMade is committed to helping the OpenStreetMap community build the best map in the world.  That goes right to our roots and our founders’ passion for OSM.  With Mapzen we are building the next generation of mapping tool, that will greatly improve mapping for existing mappers and make it easier for new mappers to get started with mapping. This will help ensure the best of community mapping, rapid response and map quality.  We think Mapzen is a great step in that direction and offer it to the community in that spirit.

As many of you know, CloudMade’s Community Ambassadors have been working very hard to build the map through outreach to local groups, holding mapping parties and working on behalf of OSM at trade shows and conferences. This has helped spread the word on OSM in selected regions in the US, but in the process we have learned that we can get a wider reach by working with larger national and local community groups. Based on this, we have made the decision to dissolve the ambassador team and build a team that will focus on partnering with national and local groups, support finding and importing public data and communicating local success stories.

Going forward, CloudMade will be actively working with national and local groups to promote OSM and community mapping.  We are working with the Geo-Georgia group on a very cool project to map the city of Atlanta in a weekend (September 11-13, if you want to help). The goal is to make Atlanta a showcase city for the OSM map and there’s a great team of people working on that. You’ll hear more about that as the time gets closer.

Our goal here is simple:  Build the Community.  Build the Map. We hope that our efforts can make a difference, but the community will build the map.  If you know of ways you can help us in that, or ways we can help you, let us know. Send a message to community@cloudmade.com.

July 23rd, 2009 - Posted by Marc Prioleau in Uncategorized | | 6 Comments

How To Get Forward Geocoding in iPhone MapKit

The CoreLocation and MapKit sessions at WWDC yesterday gave an insight to some of the powerful technology that the iPhone OS 3.0 and iPhone 3G S will bring to application developers. The new compass and enhanced accelerometer support that the combination of new hardware and software bring were a big hit with the WWDC crowd. The incomplete feature sets around MapKit were less of a hit.

MapKit seeks to be a very well implemented iPhone mapping library, that lets developers add Google maps to their iPhone applications as well as perform reverse geocoding. Sadly for iPhone developers, the fun stops with reverse geocoding. Forward geocoding (the process of turning an address into a latitude and longitude) is not available in MapKit. The reasons for this lie in complex licensing agreements between Apple, Google and TomTom (who own all of the map data that Google and Apple use). CloudMade will help you avoid the complexity.

iPhone Developers at WWDC were urged to use external geocoding services by the iPhone engineering team. CloudMade’s geocoding service fits the bill perfectly. iPhone developers can integrate CloudMade’s geocoding web-services directly into their MapKit applications, without worrying about breaking and terms of service. The geocoding web service looks like this:

http://geocoding.cloudmade.com/BC9A493B41014CAABB98F0471D759707/
geocoding/find/moscone center west.html

Lets take a closer look at the URL:

http://geocoding.cloudmade.com/ – the base URL

BC9A493B41014CAABB98F0471D759707/ – your API key, available here

geocoding/find – the “find” method, more docs here

moscone center west – the text string to search for

.html choose from HTML or JSON output.

Click here to see the result.

You can find our more about CloudMade’s geocoding services here.

June 12th, 2009 - Posted by Nick Black in REST, Uncategorized, api, developers, iPhone, products | | 8 Comments

iPhone Developer VIP Party – June 10th 9.30pm San Francisco

Tonight CloudMade is excited to sponsor the iPhone Developer VIP Party at Swig bar in San Francisco.  Doors open at 9.30 and we expect a full house!

CloudMade has been active at Apple’s World Wide Developer Conference this week, engaging with iPhone developers who are creating the next great mapping and location-aware applications for the iPhone and iPod Touch.   Tonight we’re looking forward to talking with many of you one-on-one to discuss your vision on the future of location-aware apps.  We also want to find out what features you’d like to see on the iPhone, web and other mobile platforms.  Over a Maptini, of course!

Starting with our rich, crowd-sourced maps, CloudMade gives iPhone developers an easier way to build more immersive mapping applications than Apple’s MapKit.   Developers will find our suite of iPhone supported Libraries gives you easy access to CloudMade services while supporting a number of unique features like vector data and MapSafe location management service.  CloudMade’s non-restrictive licensing even allows for advanced services such as routing, geocoding or tracking functionality – without having to call a lawyer or break the bank.

So if you’re a developer looking for better ways to incorporate maps and location into your app, sign up for a API key at CloudMade’s Developer Zone and get started today.  Adding customized CloudMade maps will delight your users and make your app stand-out from the crowd!

For mapping success on the iPhone and iPod Touch, just add:

• Crowd-Sourced Maps
• CloudMade Geo APIs
• Your Cool Application

June 10th, 2009 - Posted by Cragg Nilson in Uncategorized, api, cloudmade, developers, events, maps, openstreetmap, tools | | 1 Comments

Mapping with the kids

I took my children to a mapping party last weekend in Milton Keynes (UK).  My daughters are 4, 6 and 8 years old.  We had three GPSs, three scooters, 2 cameras and a pad of paper.

My girls had mapped with me before near our home, but always incidental mapping (i.e. we were going on a bike ride or walk and did a bit of mapping).   This was the first time we would have an assigned area to look at.

So, for those of you who want to map and have kids you don’t want to neglect, here is what I learned:

• Bring some toys (in my case each girl had a back pack and a nintendo and/or ipod).  The times you spend talking to other adults and/or working on the computer are pretty dull to watch.
• Bring a GPS for each person…  The kids love mapping and will happily run down that trail you want mapped and back (when your legs are too tired).  Each kid wants to hold a GPS and they make you alot more effective with limitless energy.
  [Note to tools developers, the ability to overlay multiple traces would be very useful... ]
• Map something they can enjoy…  So, we got to do Campbell park in Milton Keynes…  They could play, run, have fun…  Sitting in a car while daddy did the parking lots and bus stops on the way over was not much fun for them…
• Two 2 hour sessions is alot of mapping for a kid…  mine managed two ninety minute sessions with a longish lunch in the middle.  Plan for more down time
• The kids will notice things that should be mapped that you might not…  Mapping stuff kids find important, means making a map that is meaningful to families…
• Finally: Mappers are very nice to kids Everyone seemed a bit suprised, but pleased to see them…

Overall, if you map and have kids…  Take them to a party.  They will love it, you will see new things to map through their eyes and they can make you more effective while on foot (in particular).

Mapping with kids in Milton Keynes

May 19th, 2009 - Posted by Jim Brown in Uncategorized | | 10 Comments

CloudMade Developer Zone Launches This Evening

CloudMade’s Developer Zone launches in San Francisco this evening. We’ll be releasing several new sets of APIs that will let developer build awesome new location based tools. Stay tuned to this blog or follow us on twitter.

If you’re in Europe and couldn’t make it along to the San Francisco, there’s a London event happening next Thursday – see here for details.

February 6th, 2009 - Posted by Nick Black in Uncategorized | | 0 Comments