7 ms·
Google Maps Open-Source Challenger MapBox Raises $10M From Foundry Group
- wensing 13y agoIf your app uses maps, it's time to get on board the MapBox rocket. Resistance is futile.
- mourner 13y agoThat's going to seriously shake the mapping space. MapBox is quite an unstoppable force now.
- pidg 13y agoI saw their CEO speak at an event in Geneva last month - went in having not heard of MapBox, came out impressed. It's a really cool model - particularly the way that corrections made to a map by a FourSquare user, for example would be instantly reflected to a user on Uber.
- rajeemcariazo 13y agoWhat happened to OpenStreetMap?
- llimllib 13y agoNothing. Mapbox are quite large supporters of OSM; they wrote the iD editor for it. http://ideditor.com/ http://ideditor.com/
- _delirium 13y agoMapbox also pays Artem Pavlenko, the lead developer of Mapnik [1], which has for a while been the main tile renderer used by OSM. Their interests there align nicely, because Mapnik is also the rendering backend for Mapbox's TileMill software. [1] http://mapnik.org/ http://mapnik.org/
- ris 13y agoAlso Dennis Luxen, developer of OSRM.
- tommorris 13y agoMapBox is to OpenStreetMap as Ubuntu is to Linux. MapBox provide hosted tiles, beautiful designed custom tiles and a bunch of nice tools (including iD, the in-browser editor). OpenStreetMap provide the community-maintained dataset. MapBox have been very supportive of the OSM community in terms of donations, sponsorship of events, use of office space and so on. The point is if you are Foursquare and you want to start using OpenStreetMap, MapBox will give you commercial support and design services and so on. OpenStreetMap (the community, the non-profit Foundation etc.) won't.
- yellowbkpk 13y agoAs someone who sits in #osm and #osm-dev on irc.oftc.net and helps at least one person a day, I'd like to point out that the community will most definitely give you support. MapBox certainly makes it easier to pay someone, but the community isn't completely shut off from the world :).
- tommorris 13y agoOh, sure. We're a pretty friendly and helpful community, but I think the analogy holds. ;)
- stugrey 13y agoTheir TileMill software is great. You don't have to sign up to have them serve your maps, you can use all of their tools to generate your tilesets and do what you like with them (obviously attributing your data set source). The MapBox iOS SDK is another stand out contribution from these guys.
- hnha 13y agoSome of their free offerings are so great that i sometimes worry they might be (maybe unintended) in a "embrace, extend" phase, extinguishing competitors left and right. Their uprise is insane.
- jusben1369 13y agoI wonder how much this is simply about startups not wanting to rely on Google. Even Apple felt uncomfortable relying on their maps product. So much smaller startups probably hate that dependency too.
- mourner 13y agoIt's more about startups wanting to rely on open data and open source vs proprietary.
- jusben1369 13y agoOpen is better than proprietary for sure. However a BOD won't care too much about that. They will care about being dependent upon a current or future competitor for critical functionality though.
- mw67 13y agoProblem is Google map isn't much customisable, and when you do lot of dev involving maps then only affordable solution is Mapbox.
- hackula1 13y agoI am sure it is partly due to the fact that this is way cheaper than google maps or esri for heavy commercial use.
- rohitv 13y agoOut of curiosity, how much does the Google Maps API actually cost for a business license?
- hackula1 13y ago17.5k/yr for the lowest package was what I was quoted a couple weeks ago. It was actually not a terrible deal compared to most of the alternatives as far as value goes... but the starter package is way larger than you would need for most things. They essentially price segment the small startups out of the market. OTOH, many of the other GIS server licenses push 100k+, so that is why something like mapbox is getting people excited.
- chatman 13y agoStupid title. Even MapBox might agree they don't compete with Google Maps. They are here to make OSM awesome, and hats off to MapBox for what they've done so far.
- aw3c2 13y agoThey do compete with Google Map tiles. And so far that seems to be their biggest factor of financial income, at least looking from the outside.
- hackula1 13y agoThey most certainly do. I got a quote from Google for commercial maps use a few weeks ago. 17.5k/yr an up. Mapbox seems like a good alternative for serious web mapping. Google Maps is still pretty week in B2B type mapping though. Esri is the real competitor here.
- ajtaylor 13y agoOnly 17.5k/yr? You got off easy! Our first quote at $work was 6 figures, though we ended up settling on a figure more than yours and less than $100k/yr. We've now switched to OSM + MapQuest open tiles + leaflet and couldn't be happier with the result.
- anonemouscoward 13y agoMapBox is a ridiculous joke until they start supporting building numbers. (Yes, they know of this limitation, but they deliberately cripple their product because of 'typographical clarity' or somesuch bullshit.)
- untog 13y agoThe product isn't a joke just because it doesn't support the one minor feature you want. I use it and love it.
- mapmeld 13y agoDo you mean adding building numbers to the map (similar to the OSM Mapnik tiles?) This is something you can do yourself in TileMill and then overlay onto MapBox Streets or other tiles.
- joekrill 13y agoI love MapBox -- I am a happy paying customer -- but the title seems a little misleading: what is open source about them? They source their data from OpenStreetMap, which is open-source, but MapBox themselves is not. Or am I missing something?
- mnutt 13y agoThey open source a lot of their software. Check out tilemill: https://www.mapbox.com/tilemill/ https://www.mapbox.com/tilemill/
- joekrill 13y agoThat's really awesome. But I still don't think describing MapBox themselves as "Open-Source" is accurate. There are LOTS Of other companies that open source a lot of their code, but certainly wouldn't be considered "Open-Source" themselves: Microsoft, Apple, Adobe, id, Novell, Oracle. The list goes on. I certainly don't want to take anything away from MapBox. I really love what they offer. I just don't think it's fair to describe them as "Open-Source".
- incanus77 13y agoMapBox does not sell any software or hardware -- all the tools are open source. Unlike Microsoft, Apple, Adobe, id, Novell, Oracle. The list goes on.
- joekrill 13y agoSure they do. They are a SaaS provider. At least I presume that's what they're charging my credit card for every month.
- incanus77 13y agoRight, but the software used to do it, and the tools to integrate, are open source, which is the original question above. You can do everything MapBox is doing yourself, on your own, but good luck scaling and making it georedundant at super high volume -- that's MapBox's value add.
- andrewxhill 13y agoThe mapbox team is fantastic, this is totally great news for all of them, the mapping community, and map users. Can't wait to see what they come up with next
- sztanko 13y agoMapbox is awesome. Speaking of their tile maps, there are two things that make them less competitive compared to Google: geocoding and street view. While nominatim is fantastic, it is nearly not as good as google maps search, which has people employed full time to update company listings, etc. There are many companies that depend on search so much they are willing to stick to google maps.
- oscargrouch 13y agoI just hope they dont fall down as a option when Google come up with a buy offer.. For users, developers and the society in general, competition and options are a good thing.. I cant say i didnt feel sad when Waze was bought.. with more time and effort no product would bare to stand against it