Etiqueta: OpenStreetMap

Foursquare ditches Google Maps for MapBox and OpenStreetMaps

Design flexibility, continuous updates and an ability to help support the open-source movement are further reasons that Foursquare provides for the change.

Unfortunately, for some users, this decision isn’t a good one. As noted by one of the commenters on Foursquare’s blog post, OpenStreetMaps don’t have the breadth of coverage that Google Maps do. But, given the open nature of the project, its assumed (and hoped) that areas will be mapped quickly and accurately to make up for any gaps.

We’ll have to see how the move pans out, but hopefully the amount of negatively-affected users won’t be too high. I have to applaud Foursquare on the initiative, but simply hope that it works out for the best.


Screen Shot 2012-02-29 at 4.29.30 PM

An interesting move from Foursquare, and one that the company says it has done because of a desire to support the startup ecosystem. In a blog post, the company explains that it has done away with using the Google Maps API in favor of OpenStreetMaps, given a face via MapBox.

“When we initially began looking around for other map providers, we found some incredibly strong alternatives. And while the new Google Maps API pricing was the reason we initially started looking into other solutions, we ultimately ended up switching because, after all our research and testing, OpenStreetMap and MapBox was simply the best fit for us.”

MapBox, according to Foursquare, is “making gorgeous maps with the OpenStreetMap data”. Its MapBox Streets product was just released, so the timing was good too. So now, when you’re looking at maps in Foursquare, they’re going to be a bit different:

mapbox Foursquare ditches Google Maps for MapBox and OpenStreetMaps Leer más “Foursquare ditches Google Maps for MapBox and OpenStreetMaps”

Polymaps

Polymaps is a free, open-source JavaScript library for making dynamic, interactive maps. It is the result of a collaboration between Stamen Design and SimpleGeo. Founded by Erik Rodenbeck, Stamen is one of the most respected data visualization studios out there. SimpleGeo is a service that provides location infrastructure that makes it easy to add geo-aware features to applications.

Description

Polymaps provides speedy display of multi-zoom datasets over maps, and supports a variety of visual presentations for tiled vector data, in addition to the usual cartography from OpenStreetMap, CloudMade, Bing, and other providers of image-based web maps.

Because Polymaps can load data at a full range of scales, it’s ideal for showing information from country level on down to states, cities, neighborhoods, and individual streets. Because Polymaps uses SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) to display information, you can use familiar, comfortable CSS rules to define the design of your data. And because Polymaps uses the well known spherical mercator tile format for its imagery and its data, publishing information is a snap.


Benjamin Wiederkehr
http://datavisualization.ch/tools/polymaps

Polymaps is a free, open-source JavaScript library for making dynamic, interactive maps. It is the result of a collaboration between Stamen Design and SimpleGeo. Founded by Erik Rodenbeck, Stamen is one of the most respected data visualization studios out there. SimpleGeo is a service that provides location infrastructure that makes it easy to add geo-aware features to applications.

Description

Polymaps provides speedy display of multi-zoom datasets over maps, and supports a variety of visual presentations for tiled vector data, in addition to the usual cartography from OpenStreetMap, CloudMade, Bing, and other providers of image-based web maps.

Because Polymaps can load data at a full range of scales, it’s ideal for showing information from country level on down to states, cities, neighborhoods, and individual streets. Because Polymaps uses SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) to display information, you can use familiar, comfortable CSS rules to define the design of your data. And because Polymaps uses the well known spherical mercator tile format for its imagery and its data, publishing information is a snap. Leer más “Polymaps”