The CloudMade difference

Sometimes people ask me "Steve, what does CloudMade bring to the OpenStreetMap party that OSM can't do for itself?". And my answer is, hot babes.



The dude on the left is old-school OpenStreetMap. The hot babe is CloudMade. Being committed OSMers, they are of course both awsome and both have seriously awsome names, but only one of them looks like Richard Stallman.

(If you do know how to crowdsource hot babes, perhaps you could tell our product development team. We think it could be the killer app for the Slashdot crowd.)

How awsome am I?

So not many of you know that CloudMade also has an awsome data analysis team that works on future geo industry trends. I don't mind admitting I was once a bit of a n00b at all of this so when Nick told me "we need some serious geo intel", I started opening up our PCs and ripping out the AMDs.

But all that's changed and we now have dudes working on what's happening before it happens. I'm going to be announcing the first such product at our London launch event this evening but you lucky guys get to see it first.

So we like to start with big overview stuff, and this first product is a swingometer assessing the strength of the geo industry. Obviously I don't want to give away too much about the extreme analysis magic behind it but suffice it to say that if you're following the latest in SteveC goodness you'll already have read the source..... and it's FULLY compliant.

Hey--if you're reading this by RSS or planet openstreetmap you'll need to open the FSC blog for the full awsome swingometer effect.

Moar products!

[Nick - check with Matt or one of the Ukrainian cool kids I’m using the meme right - okay thanks bye!!!]

So our SF launch was amazing, check out the twitter buzz. http://search.twitter.com/search?q=cloudmade

Very few technical hitches, considering. I did ask Andy Allen why the cycle route planner sent me on circuitous routes up mountains, over fences, down alleyways and along dirt tracks, but he informed me that Sustrans routes are meant to be like that, and furthermore could I please get back to pestering Mick Jagger’s PA as I was distracting him from some important blogging he had to do.

Anyway I’ll let the products speak for themselves.

Routing



CM routing is moar detailed than any other routing engine available! Imagine the arguments you can have with your girlfriend when she turns left after only 32m. (If you had a girlfriend.)



See the power of crowd-sourced map data! You wouldn't get results of this quality with Google.

Style editor



See what you can do with our style editor!

Geocoding and geosearch



CM search is the only product on the market that matches the awsome speed of the OSM namefinder!

Oh yeah.

Remember how Google announced nothing of significance at Where 2.0 but then dropped the bomb a month later? I’m just saying, is all.

You'll need this

So it occurs to me that some of you following my world-changing presentation via satellite linkup might not understand how we work at CM.

Juha has approved that we release our organogram to the public. I think it makes it clear who does the real work.

CloudMade make blogs differently

YES YES YES it’s my big day YES YES YES

PUMP. HARDER. PUMP. HARDER.

TWENTY. TWENTY-ONE. TWENTY-TWO.

I’m SO psyched. I’m so FUCKING psyched. I am SO fucking hot right now.

Punchbag. Gimme that punchbag.

*thud* - Google
*thud* - Microsoft
*thud* - Yahoo [Hang on, don’t we like them? - Nick]

I rise above the haters. Today you see Steve Rampant, rising glorious from the flames, in excelsis mapso. I am revived. Maps course through my veins.

I think no longer about trivialities. Mails and Rails, patches, Potlatchs and dispatches.rb. All that is for the worker ants.

I can map using only my consciousness and my clearly expressed desire. One tweet and the world invisibly shapes itself around my will. I merely have to say the word MAPS and another city falls into line. MAPS. MAPS. You see. Oceans fall and mountains drift as SRTM voids shape reality. MAPS.

Tomorrow there are two realities, three realities, four realities all expressed through my Style Editor. Tomorrow the world routes itself through the highways, byways, roads and rails of my vision. Earth shall fall and Cloud shall envelop all the lands.

PUMP. HARDER. PUMP. HARDER. MAPS. MAPS. PUMP. HARDER.