Its great to see developers like John mixing and matching layers like this - its exactly what we had in mind when we started to put together our tile server. We want to help OpenStreetMap’s goal of letting people do interesting and unexpected things with map data. So long as you respect the terms of OpenStreetMap’s CC-by-SA license and attribute CloudMade when you use our maps, you can use our tiles in any web, mobile or desktop client.

If you do something cool with CloudMade maps, let us know.

OpenStreetMap and CloudMade founder, Steve Coast, will share his insights into the world of collaborative map making, talking about why the world needs free and open geodata, why traditional models of map making are not cut out for a world where maps form a core part of everyday life. You’ll hear how your applications can benefit from the rich map data that OpenStreetMap has to offer.

From mobile phones, to satellite navigation, from mashups to social networks - maps are everywhere. Yet most of the maps we use each day are owned by two companies - Tom-Tom and Nokia. We think that maps are too important to be controlled by a handful of governments and companies. Everyday tens of thousands of OpenStreetMap volunteers around the world are helping to liberate map data by making maps which can be used free of charge by anyone, anywhere in the world for almost any use you can imagine.

By packaging OpenStreetMap data into a set of high quality, professional products and services, CloudMade are shaking up the existing market place. CloudMade co-founder, Nick Black, will talk about their existing APIs which allow developers to embed high quality maps in web and mobile applications as well as talking about future plans for some exciting new APIs and services.

Developers will have the opportunity to talk to the CloudMade team who will be on hand to answer questions about their current and future plans over a slice of pizza and a drink.

Registration for this event is free. To register, click here.

For more information, email nick@cloudmade.com

The dataset was collected by CloudMade in late 2007 using all of the tools and processes used by OpenStreetMap mappers. The team, made up of CloudMade founders Steve Coast and Nick Black along with long-term OSM contributor, Andy Robinson, drove and cycled every road on the Isle of Man, recording their movements with cheap, consumer grade GPS units whilst taking photos of street signs with digital cameras.

The finished map

Donating the Isle of Man data to OpenStreetMap is the completion of a cycle for us. We set out to prove that it was possible for three guys with bicycles and GPS units using OpenStreetMap’s software, to do what the Ordnance Survey or TeleAtlas do, but at a fraction of the cost. If I wanted to make a map, I would use OpenStreetMap’s software. If I wanted to make a better map, I’d give it to the OpenStreetMap community and let them maintain it. The real test will be to come back in 6 months and see how many footpaths and new housing estates have been added to the map.

Detailed view of Peel, a city on the west coast of the Island which shows the street network as well as a selection of points of interest.

The dataset is significant for a few reasons. The Isle of Man will become the second country to be completely mapped in OSM, following the donation of the complete Netherlands road network to OSM by Dutch map makers AND. Secondly, the Isle of Man has been overlooked in the past by most online map providers, who do not consider the small nation to be a high priority.

The import process is being managed by OSMer Dan Karran and we expect it to be a few weeks until the data is available in OSM. In the mean time, you can get a sneak preview over here.

A full press is available here.

Click on the image to read more

AFC have got some great technology and we’re looking forward to working with them on more projects in the near future. If you need mobile Flash maps, check out AFC right away.

All of the files at downloads.cloudmade.com are free and are provided under OpenStreetMap’s Creative-Commons Attribution Share-Alike 2.0 License.

The maps were made using Steve Radcliffe’s Mkgmap utility which takes OSM data and outputs a Garmin file in combination with some perl scripts written by OSM’s Richard Fairhurst. So big thanks to Richard, Steve and of course to the whole OSM community. The glue on CloudMade’s side was done by Andy Allan who came up with the idea of Garmin GPS maps that highlight errors in OSM data. Andy modified some existing OSM tools, which can all be found here. Andy’s going to post some more thoughts about the process to the CloudMade dev list - so sign up to find out more.

The maps are created from the latest OSM data we have and will updated every Thursday - all of the files have bookmarkable names so you can easily get hold of teh latest maps.

Head over to downloads.cloudmade.com and see what you can do with the maps.

We also released two new APIs as pre-Alpha services: theWeb Maps API and the Mobile Maps API. Right now these services are targeted at developers who want to get their hands on the very latest things we have to offer. Both APIs are accessed by directly calling our tile server, though the observant amongst you will probably have noticed slippy maps present on lots of our pages. We’ll be releasing documentation for the slippy map API shortly, so watch this space.

We’re particularly excited about the Mobile Maps API, which gives developers access to a set of tiles which we’ve started to optimize for mobile use. By reducing the tile size to 64×64 pixels (rather than the usual 256×256) and simplifying the cartography we’re keeping tile sizes down to around 2-3kB. This is a first pass and we hope to get the sizes down even more to help mobile applications save on costly bandwidth and enhance user experience.

Because both these services are built on top of OpenStreetMap data you can use them in almost any way you like. Most other online map providers don’t let you use their maps in mobile devices or for real time routing or tracking or outside of their own APIs, for example. We want you to use CloudMade maps for the coolest things you can think of.

If you are itching to play with either the Web or Mobile Maps API, you can request an API key here - I can’t promise that you’ll get access straight away, but we will get back to you as soon as the API is ready. We’ve also got a developers mailing list which you can sign up to here.

Both images based on map data created by OpenStreetMap.org contributors and licensed CCBYSA.

New Offices

We’re leaving the leafy Putney suburbs in search of bigger offices. We move into our new offices at the beginning of June - we’ll be having a moving in party at a local pub. Stay posted for details.

We also now have offices in Menlo Park (CA) and in Kyiv.

New to Team

We’ve had a lot of new people join us over the last two months. First to join our London engineering team was Andy Allan, followed by Shaun McDonald, and most recently Matt Amos. Our Kyiv engineering team is bursting from the seams (click through for names):

Engineering is being headed up by Jim Brown. Our Menlo Park office is home to our new Chairman Juha Christensen and our interim VP Products, Christian Petersen, with more to come soon.

CloudMade Mapping Parties

Through our OSM Grants scheme we’ve been sponsoring a few mapping parties. There’s the London Mapping Marathon - a series of mapping events held throughout London over the summer, being run by Shaun with the aim of finishing off the various bits and pieces that still need to be mapped in London. We’ve also been involved with mapping parties in Sutton and San Francisco. There are definitely more mapping parties to come over the summer.

Hiring

Update We’ve filled all of our internship positions for this year. Keep an eye on this blog for more info about future positions.

We’re still looking for more people to join us in London, including full time and intern positions in the Product Management team, intern positions in Engineering and a full time office manager. Take a look at the careers page for more details.

We want to make OpenStreetMap better and we want you to be involved UPDATE - this is worldwide, you don’t have to be from the UK. From now on anyone can apply to Cloud Made for an OpenStreetMap Grant. You can apply for grants of £100 - £1000+ to support useful, interesting or innovative work around OpenStreetMap. This could be anything from squashing OSM’s 10 most annoying bugs to mapping an entire city to writing a new mapping client - the choice is yours. Here are some ideas:

• Map somewhere - You need some funds to support a mapping expedition to Monmouthshire or even further afield.
• Build your OSM community - Live in a town or country that’s hardly been mapped? You can apply for a grant to help cover the costs of running a mapping party - promoting it, buying GPS units and providing lunch for hungry mappers.
• Pledge to fix some bugs - Pledge to fix 10 big bugs in 10 days and claim a reward.

This should give you some ideas. The grants are available immediately, to everyone. Judging and awarding of grants is solely at the discretion of Cloud Made Limited, however advice may be taken from leading OSMers and those on the OSM mailing lists. To apply, email grants@cloudmade.com.

CloudMade, a key pioneer in the emerging collaborative mapping space, announced today that the company has secured a €2.4 million first round of financing from Copenhagen-based venture fund Sunstone Capital, who joins the founders as well as existing private stakeholders and serial entrepreneurs, open source evangelist Nikolaj Nyholm and early Skype investor Morten Lund. CloudMade is a mapping company created to professionalise and package geo data from OpenStreetMap (www.openstreetmap.org), a global initiative to create a free, editable map of the world from user-generated input. Read the full press release

Take a look at our jobs page for more details.