CloudMade
CloudMade (cloudmade.com) provides a platform for software developers to build geo-enabled applications. The company provides a range of of web services, mobile and desktop libraries that let developers build powerful geo applications quickly and easily. CloudMade makes extensive use of OpenStreetMap data to provide mapping services. The company has a strong belief that OpenStreetMap can benefit enormously from commercial involvement and that a strong OpenStreetMap community is needed to ensure the health of the project.
CloudMade was founded in 2007 by OSM founder Steve Coast and long-term OSM contributer, Nick Black. Both Nick and Steve sit on CloudMade's Board of Directors. There is more information on key staff below. In January 2011 the company OneStepAhead was acquired as 'Cloudmade Deutschland GmbH' [1].
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Products and Services
- Web Maps Lite - Is an extremely fast, compact but fully feature Javascript web mapping library, as an alternative to OpenLayers, but is currently not open source.
- iPhone Maps Library - Is a set of iPhone libraries that allow developers to create iPhone applications that include maps, geocoding and routing, powered by CloudMade, based on OpenStreetMap data.
- Style Editor - Is a unique web based application that lets you completely customise the styling of maps. Using the style editor you can change the colour, size, thickness and visibility of features on maps as well as add and remove points of interest. Once the map has been created it can used via CloudMade's other APIs.
- Routing Server - Provides point-to-point routing, based on OSM data through a simple HTTP API - at the time the only routing service based on OSM which respects turn restrictions.
- There is also an extensive set of open source apis that let developers get started using any of CloudMade's web services in Ruby, Python, Perl, Java and J2ME.
Contributions to OSM
Everyone at CloudMade actively participates in OSM in one way or another. Some contributions have included:
Technical
- API v0.6 work - Members of the CloudMade Engineering team, Andy Allan, Matt Amos, Shaun McDonald and Harry Wood worked as part of the OpenStreetMap dev team to deliver the new OSM API.
- The NoNames Layer on the front page ([2]) is a rendering of OSM data that highlights un-named streets. The concept came from Dave Stubbs and was developed by Andy Allan for CloudMade, who now host it.
- Mapzen is a Flex based editor being developed by CloudMade for OpenStreetMap. The editor is open source (GPL v2.0) and makes use of OAuth so it can be deployed on any website, paving the way for specialised editors (like cycle editors) in the future.
- CloudMade makes extensive use of the Mapnik rendering library that OSM use. Work is lead by Oleg and Andrii and the team have contributed various fixes back to the Mapnik source.
Mapping
The 2008 London Mapping Marathon lead improvements in the state of the London Map, and the 2009 Mapping Party Marathon continues to bring a lively London OSM community together, with CloudMade guys mostly organising proceedings (though help is welcome!)
Donations
CloudMade have variously donated money to OpenStreetMap for sponsorship of the 2008 and 2009 State of the Map conferences, and as part of the new server campaign.
- In March 2009 CloudMade donated €10,000 as a platinum sponser for State of the Map.
- In April 2009 CloudMade donated £2,000 to the OpenStreetMap Hardware Fund.
People
For a full listing for CloudMade's employees, check out the team page on the CloudMade website. Here is a list of some CloudMade London employees.
- Steve Coast - Founded CloudMade (and OpenStreetMap) and CloudMade Board member.
- Nick Black - Founded CloudMade, now a Board member and Head of Products. Nick is responsible for CloudMade's entire products line, leading the planning of new products and working with product and design delivery teams.
