New CEO appointed

Hey.

So I’ve not blogged much recently but that’s because at CloudMade we’re doing moar stuff ftw than ever before (I must stop stretching these memes, it’s getting painful). Obviously it’s all super-secret stuff that I can’t tell the community about, but I figure the loyal readers of this blog are entitled to a preview. So:

• Our editor is almost ready. Really. Having distracted RichardF with API 0.6, Frederik with ODbL, and the Merkaartor guys with Stefan de Konink, the three incumbents have been in feature stasis for months now which means we can blow them away with a mere flick of the toolbar. We’ve actually hired the People’s Map guys to write our editor - we wanted people who really understand the user experience. But more on that at Where 2.0.
  
• Location is everywhere. It's all about pervasive geocontext. CloudMade is dedicated to pushing the boundaries so we have 30 people working on geocontext. We don’t actually know what it means yet but we’re determined that when someone invents it, we’ll be there first.
  
• We don’t just aim to reinvent mapping. Oh no. We set our sights high and so we also have a plan to reinvent the Internet. The existing infrastructure is just not fast enough for the increasing demands of the 21st century (e.g. cycle-map tiles, Map Features page, long anguished e-mails about ODbL) so we need a speedier replacement. Our new Internet will solve this. All packets will be delivered by shaunmcdonald on his bike.
  
• Midnight Commander is not just meant to look like the Matrix. It is the Matrix. It’s set up in my basement on a 40in plasma screen and I do have a five-year plan for world domination. “No, Mr Ramm, I expect you to die” - you know the drill.

But I realise that, even for someone like me who is able to be in three continents at the same time - oh did I mention we were working on that too? - this is a bit of a stretch. Take this posting for example - I set myself a deadline of midday for this and I’ll only just make it. I have to give something up.

Also some of our wonderful community has been muttering (in German) about conflict of interest, or as Google Translate has it, “blitzkrieg of hobby”. Personally I don’t agree but I'll let it pass in the interests of community cohesion - as you know shitting on active members of the community and telling them they're worthless has never been my style.

Also I need to take some time out to instil discipline in the troops, what with Matt and Andy promoting insurrection on legal-talk and ymca-discuss and who-knows-what about ODbL. The shtick to the investors that “we need ODbL because it gives us certainty” kind of wears off when our own super-intelligent techies keep posting that they don’t understand it.

So I’m stepping down as Chairman of OSMF at this year’s elections - my three years are up and I’ve decided not to seek reelection. Instead we’ve decided to replace the Chairman post with that of CEO - paid staff for OSMF is one of our top priorities and this is the obvious place to start.

Now you’d be A Fool if you did this without any succession planning so I’m pleased to announce our preferred candidate will be SFan00. Those of you who don’t read #osm might not be familiar with him but I’m sure you’ll find his enthusiastic style will ingratiate him with you immediately. Indeed Mr Fan is equally intelligible in every language so the German guys will love him right from the off. He even says “ftw” now and then although we think this is probably a spelling mistake for something else. It’s going to be an exciting time.

The Future of Communications is Happening Here

I've been blogging about the cool things we're doing at CloudMade. (Our editor is almost ready. AS3 FTW!) But as the chairman of the board of OSMF, I am often asked: "Steve, what are the cool things in the OSMF pipeline? Any surprises in store for us on the community side?"

Now I can't of course share our full 5-year plan of world domination with you (Nick came up with the fashionable OSM 2014 tag for it) but a key pillar of this is going to be a radical communications revamp. You have already seen how we're gradually replacing mailing lists with telephone conferences. But there's more! I have heard your complaints about the Wiki and they are all true - the hardware is meagre, the software is crap, and the users, well, I've promised Nick not to throw the talk-de trouble makers any more bones. The good news is, we're going to replace the Wiki with a full-colour, monthly membership magazine that is delivered to your door, free of charge, courtesy of CloudMade sponsoring! I have three CloudMade designers working round the clock on this assignment and their beta results are awsome. You'll absolutely love the centrefold design they came up with. I'll let Nick be the editor-in-chief and he has promised me space for a monthly philosophy column.

And before the naysayers complain: There's absolutely no reason to be worried. We will carry at least half a page of letters to the editor. In each issue. Promise.

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.