Mobile games are a huge marketing opportunity
Millions of users are having fun playing mobile games every day. This creates a huge marketing opportunity for consumer brands.

Banners are not the perfect solution
The only way brands and game developers are really taking advantage of this huge marketing opportunity is through banner ads adopted from the web. The banners do add revenue for game developers, but most gamers don’t like seeing banners in the middle of their game. In addition, the banners are rarely the right tool for consumer brands and retailers to achieve positive branding, retail traffic and an increase in revenue.

Sponsored Locations
We need to find a tool that ensures that game developers make money and that brands get a great marketing tool in a way that people playing mobile games love.

CloudMade has solved this challenge by talking to leading brands and top game developers and building a service that meets their specific needs. The solution we have come up with is Sponsored Locations.

We look forward to talking to you too
If you are a game developer or a consumer brand that we have not yet talked to about tailoring Sponsored Locations to YOUR needs, we look forward to connecting with you soon. In the meantime, you can learn more about Sponsored Locations here.

This is a repost from my personal blog.

I’m starting a series on explaining how and why CloudMade uses Python. The following one explains why we ditched OSM’s stack in favour of in-house solution.

Intro

Last week at Apps World Conference and Exhibition industry experts and newbies gathered together to discuss the current state and future of mobile applications development. Even the heavy London snow didn’t prevent 2,400 people from attending the show, and it turned out as two excellent days of networking.

With three simultaneous streams (Developer, Marketing and TV, Handset and OEM) the Apps World event aimed to address the entire app ecosystem, and the challenge of development, design and delivery of apps across multiple platforms. Nick Black, CloudMade Co-Founder and Head of Products, spoke at the conference on how location is helping to create and monetize outstanding apps.

CloudMade also exhibited in Developers Zone where we were busy meeting with new and existing developers.

We are always looking for new ways to meet with developers and understand how we can help you build better user experiences and increase your revenue. You can help us by sending information about any interesting events you plan to attend to iryna@cloudmade.com

Another update of our App Gallery brings some new  examples of impressive CloudMade-powered apps and shows how location continues to enhance user experiences for web and mobile services. The range of applications presented in our app gallery is becoming really wide, and it now includes such categories as Navigation, Travel, Business, Reference, Healthcare and Fitness, Utilities, Entertainment and Productivity. Here you can see some newly added apps that we’ve found especially interesting.

Fahrtenbuch is a must-have app for anyone who needs to track mileage for tax deduction or reimbursement. This app is the #1 choice “driver’s log” in Germany, and it is the first one to have full iCal integration. CloudMade Geocoding and Routing services have been used in it.

Choosing a restaurant or a bar for the evening? Drinktown will help you to make that choice by telling you about all the food and drink specials near you. The website is updated daily by tens of thousands of members, and it is very easy to use since it allows you to sort data by day of the week, special type or just browse the beautifully styled map to find nearby deals.

With the Next Time iPhone app using reminders has become extremely efficient, since it now takes into account your location. You can create a list of locations and set reminders for those. Next Time will run in the background to alert you of your reminders the next time you’re at the location. The app is using CloudMade Geocoding and Map Tiles.

TrackMyJourney-Mobile is a multi-function recreational navigation and mapping application for Java/J2ME and BlackBerry phones. It receives its location coordinates by communicating via Bluetooth with a separate GPS receiver, or via the phones internal GPS if supported. The data is then sent to TrackMyJourney website where you can then share your location and recorded tracks with your friends. The app uses CloudMade Geocoding, Map Tiles, Routing, StyleEditor and Web Maps API.

French cycling fans might get interested in Geovelo – a cycling route planner that uses OpenStreetMap data and takes into account not only distance, but also safety. Geovelo maps created with CloudMade Style Editor perfectly complement the impressive design of the website.

You can see more location based apps that use CloudMade services in our App Gallery. If you are interested in trying out those free tools and APIs  yourself, sign up to our Developer Zone.  And maybe your outstanding app will be among thoses featured in our App Gallery soon!

There is a total of £7,000 ($11,000) up for grabs and the chance to connect with and impress major content providers with your work.

Through this contest ALL entrants will get the opportunity to become part of the IC tomorrow testbed environment that connects app developers and content providers such as the like of Sony, Universal and many others and get the chance to showcase their inventiveness and build valuable relationships for the future. The goal is to develop applications that make use of the content in an innovative, experimental or simply put, fun way, and to use IC tomorrow as the testing ground to evaluate its potential.

Don’t pass up this opportunity to get your talent recognized.

If you’d like to take part and learn more about the contest then join the contest briefing event this Thursday 4th November at Skills Matter in Holborn, London, UK from 4pm to 8pm where you will meet the team behind IC tomorrow.

Chris Jackson of Metabroadcast and former Head of Strategy at the BBC will also be there to offer his advice and tell us about his experience being the first member to develop an app for the platform. You can read an interview with him here.

It’s only early days for the platform so this is a cool time to join in with an app that remixes, or repackages creative content and get the attention of big content owners.

The event is free to attend and pizza and beers will be provided.

RSVP today via our Eventbrite page here.

Details of the event

Date: 4th November 2010, 4-8pm

Location: Skills Matter, 116-120 Goswell Road, London, EC1V 7DP

RSVP: http://www.eventbrite.com/event/985903865

This event is produced by Openbusiness, creators of MiniBar. For more information please contact info@openbusiness.cc

With just 60 lines of code you can now tap into the largest social network on the planet and add an exciting social media element to your web app. You could implement this code in a number of different ways: for example, in a bar or restaurant finder web site to immediately see which of your friends have been where and when. Other possible examples might include, web sites where you want to include a travel diary element to promote interesting places to visit.

Check out the sample code here and start experimenting with it today. We’d love to hear about your cool new implementations or help you integrate it into your web app, so please email us.

The CloudMade Developer Team

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.

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.

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.

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…