geobloggers

Disclaimer: I work for Yahoo! … and I enjoy it.

Something totally, like, awesome* has finally happened. Both Mikel and Steve over on the opengeodata blog (<~~ that’s the one to click) have released the news that Yahoo! have agreed to let OSM us their satellite map tiles. As Steve points out …

“Of course, we still need to get all those street names and features. GPS traces are by no means dead - think of the new housing estates and areas without imagery. But instead of cycling down every road you should be able to just pass lots of them at either end to get the names. Or just from memory.”

Which means that the leaps and bounds that OSM has made so far, can happen faster and faster. Which brings us back to the other thing Steve said, it’s no longer if but when for OSM.

Now for the editorial bit:

People in the UK love jumping into cars, or on bikes and trekking hundreds of miles for little apparent reward. Anyone who’s done a couple of geocaches will know what I mean, I dug around in the damp undergrowth to find a tupperware box full of slightly rusty hairclips, 4 hair bands, a couple of plastic keyrings, some germ riddled mini soft toy and a soggy ‘calling card’ from ‘Five go Mad in Dorset and Timmy to Dog - Bagged this Cache’. But, obviously that’s not the point and thank goodness for that.

Right, so, lets just say that the rate of additions to OSM increases as more people become aware of it, and there’ll be more roads mapped than not. Then we’ll get to the point that people have to start going off, on OSM adventures, to map currently unmapped streets. (This is where we start to have points given for submitting tracklogs, and people can join teams, just like that Seti-at-home thing). Some time after that, there’ll be a handful of ‘Here be Dragons’ unmapped areas, and as we know, people will fall over themselves to be the first to trudge down some backwater lane, in the rain, on a Sunday, preferably with a pub at the end. British, we’re odd like that.

Ok, that’s getting everything mapped, what about updates? Again, we win. As long as there is somewhere wiki-like where people can register new road constructions, then there’ll be people who live nearby who’ll go and tracklog it within a couple of days. There is no way something like the Ordnance Survey can compete with that, we have distributed mapping on our side. And when I say nearby, I mean anywhere within 150 miles, because as mentioned above, we’re all mad. “Hey kids, lets go for a ride down some new roads!”

What I think I’m trying to say is [this is good].

*Note to Self: Don’t blog after drinking 3 Red Bulls, you write all hyper like.