The Daily Dose

OpenStreetMap: The brand

Though Wikipedia has an API for third-party developers to tap its data, Wikipedia itself is one of the most recognizable brands on the Web. And that’s because it’s much more than an API for developers – it is a service in its own right.

While the OpenStreetMap website could conceivably be used by a consumer for some navigational purposes, it hasn’t been designed as such. So even as more third-party services and developers turn to OpenStreetMap, it wouldn’t likely receive the recognition it perhaps deserves – it’s a back-end, not a front-end, after all. So would there ever be scope to push-out an OpenStreetMap-branded service on its own?

“If it was up to me, then we would certainly be a lot more consumer focused, and make the website usable like that,” says Coast. “There are some trade-offs by just focusing on the developer side of things rather than users. It basically makes our costs a lot lower, and it makes the organization more lean and focused too. But it’ll probably stay the way it is for the foreseeable future.”

So it seems despite the massive branding boost it could receive by going out on its own, there would be massive cost implications. You know those ‘give us money’ banners you see at the top of Wikipedia, with Jimmy Wales’ head plastered across the top? Yup, you’d perhaps have to endure such hijinks on OpenStreetMap too.

Speaking of which… how exactly is OpenStreetMap funded?

A lean mapping machine

As we’ve noted already, OpenStreetMap has no paid employees, no premises, and no real overheads to speak of. It’s truly a people-powered machine. But there has to be at least some costs, right?

Though Coast didn’t have an exact figure to hand, he did put its annual donations in the “low tens of thousands” bracket. “It’s practically nothing,” he says. “It’s low, because our costs are low.”

Indeed, London’s UCL and Imperial College both give “free or very cheap” hosting for OSM’s servers. And the donations it does receive fluctuate in line with very specific needs. If they do require a new database server, for instance, they run a specific funding drive to garner whatever funds are necessary to attain it.

So there’s no interest in doing a Wikipedia-style banner ad for donations? “Their infrastructure costs are a lot higher,” says Coast. “But some people have said we should do something similar.”

If OpenStreetMap can get by just fine without gazillions in the coffers, why change that, right?

Efficiency, not ideology

While he does agree with many facets of the ideological arguments contained within Serge Wroclawski’s Why the World Needs OpenStreetMap post, Coast is more concerned about the lack-of-efficiency aspect of having too many online mapping platforms.

“The sheer efficiency angle is a bigger point and slightly more important to me,” he says. “Depending on how you count, there are four major (online) maps of the world. Or, I should say, four relatively-complete maps of the world. I mean, do we really need four different maps, or would it be easier if we had one that was open?”

The four Coast refers to, of course, are Google, Tom Tom, HERE, and OpenStreetMap. Though if you want to drill down into localized regions then there is a whole lot more, such as Ordnance Survey in the UK. And this is a key point to pick up on – having an open, editable online mapping platform has different benefits depending on where you are in the world.

“The reason I started in the UK is because we have the Ordnance Survey, which makes these great maps, but then to use them you have to pay money,” explains Coast. “But then if you’re somewhere where there aren’t very good maps, like large parts of Africa, then there’s a different reason for making this data open. If you’re in a relief area, like we had with Haiti after the earthquake, there’s a whole different set of reasons why you’d want an open map that anyone can contribute to quickly.”

Over and above all this, however, OpenStreetMap-powered platforms such as those belonging to Skobbler, are able to offer 100% offline access to the maps. So, someone may well use Google Maps in their home country if they’re on an unlimited data plan, but then switch to something like GPS Navigation & Maps when abroad. All that’s required is the (free) GPS function of a smartphone, and the pre-installed map of the destination country.

For the privacy-concerned among you, this also means you can navigate without giving your personal location details away.

The future of OpenStreetMap

Though there are many things to celebrate about OpenStreetMap, such as noble intentions and scalability, there’s no escaping some of the inherent drawbacks. You would be hard-pushed to find an OpenStreetMap-powered mobile app that’s quite as slick as Google Maps – and that’s not the gushing-praise of a ‘Google Fanboy’ talkin’.

And with Google Maps, you get a lot more than simply maps and navigation. In addition to its own crowdsourced efforts via Map Maker, Waze, and its newly launched Maps Gallery, there’s the tight integration with Google Earth and Street View, something that OpenStreetMap will have a difficult time emulating.

But could OSM’s scope be expanded to include Street View-esque features?

“There’s a whole bunch of very interesting problems with that,” says Coast. “When you look at doing very high quality street imagery, it’s very expensive to do. All those vehicles and fuel, and secondary costs such as cameras and somewhere to store those hi-res photos on the vehicle. Then there’s all the processing facilities. You can see how hard and expensive it is to do.”

Fair enough, point taken.

But with the increasing affordability of professional-grade equipment and sophisticated gadgetry, where are we likely to see OpenStreetMap go from here?

We’ve seen some amazing use-cases for drones in recent times. A filmmaker used one to capture amazing scenes of New York, while the media enlisted them to document political protests in Bangkok last month. And let’s not forget this gnarly surfing video shot with a drone and a GoPro at Banzai Pipeline. So is this something OSM editors could use to their advantage?

“It’s very nascent, but there are now kits that let you take lots of photos of a specific area and turn it into a geo-rectified picture,” says Coast. “There’s one thing you have to note though – whether it’s a satellite, a plane or a drone – it’s taking a picture, but it’s probably not quite directly ‘down’. And then the Earth is not flat – there’s hills, there’s valleys. And you have to take all this into account when you stitch all the photos together.”

Indeed, there are many distortions that can come into play when taking photos from above, including the quality of the air and the atmosphere. Drones may offer some potential for amateur cartographers, but it opens up a whole hornet’s nest of issues too.

A more immediate and realistic development at OpenStreetMap towers is likely to center around one simple thing – growth. As with many online projects, things tend to snowball the more people start using it, and there has been a lot of snowballing going on in recent times. This looks set to continue.

“I think more and more people will start using it,” says Coast. “In the beginning it was very much a chicken-and-egg problem, right? You start with nothing, you do a little bit of data, but then you don’t have enough data to attract people. More people will put more data in if there was already more data, so it took a while to bootstrap the project to where it is now. But now it’s a very viable competitor to commercial offerings.”

With Telenav and Skobbler now pooling their collective resources, working to iterate and improve OpenStreetMap, and guided by the very man who started it all off ten years ago, it will be interesting to see where things go in the months and years that follow.

➤ OpenStreetMap

Image Credit 1 – Shutterstock | Image Credit 2 – Shutterstock | Image Credit 3 – Shutterstock