CloudMade, a company founded by London-based entrepreneurs Nick Black and Steve Coast, selected OpenStreetMap to power their community mapping, open data, and open systems platform. Using OpenStreetMap enables CloudMade to crowdsource geo-data collection from approximately 1000 contributors per month. Cloudmade ensures incoming data is regularly added for clients and also verifies the submitted information.
Brady Forrest at O'Reilly Radar poses the logical question: Why would Cloudmade select an open source mapping platform when more comprehensive Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft solutions are readily available and free? The simple answer is control. OpenStreetMap allows a company like CloudMade - or any of their clients - to inject data as necessary, essentially customizing a geographically accurate map from the ground up.
Nick Black and Steve Coast are also responsible for Mappam - a service enabling the placement of relevant ads targeted to exact geographical locations. The superior flexibility and customization of Mappam and CloudMade should help crowdsourced mapping emerge as a standard rather than a minor practice.