At Cloudmade, as providers of mapping technology, we deal in models of the real world. We also support one of the worlds leading Crowdsourcing initiatives – Open Street Map.

We provide mobile/Web sdks, tools, web services and applications that use these data models to create customized maps views, routes, relevant search results and other location based information/services to our developers for their applications, Web services and embedded devices.

The task of creating and maintaining these models of the real world (the map database) is never done. Which is another way of saying that no map is ever complete and finished because neither the world, nor the needs of the map consumers, ever stop changing.

The completeness of a map can be viewed on 3 axis:

· Reach – which is the number of different kinds of things that are in the map (for example are stores or bus stops or drinking fountains represented) and the density of information about particular items (how many of the stores in an area are mapped)

· Freshness – which is how current the information is (how long does it take for a changed turn restriction or new shop or new opening hours or phone number to make it into the map)

· Richness – which is the amount of information you have about an object (you have the store name and address, but do you have the opening hours and types of credit cards offered?)

The reason the job never ends is that there are always going to be different types of objects to be added to the map, changes to existing items and new layers of rich information to be acquired about existing and new objects. And this information goes stale at a rapid pace and needs constant attention and realignment with the real world to keep it fresh.

Monolithic commercial mapping companies (and I include Google with its fleet of mapping trucks in this group) come into a community and do a good job of tracing the roads and capturing a base set of information about what is along those roads (at that exact moment). But they fall short in that they cannot become part of the community and map the rich texture of an area (the shop details, the walking paths, the summer art fair that is there for two weeks a year, the road that will be closed for the next two weeks for engineering works or the new speed camera). They have no way of knowing about the evolution of the area till they come back next year. In effect they create a flat snapshot of the places they map, rather than a rich layered image with a multitude of perspectives. Also, they only map where they can drive their trucks.

We work with a remarkable organization called Open Street Map which has built (and is maintaining and constantly increasing the reach and richness of) the most complete map of the world through Crowdsourcing. And because it is crowdsourced it’s exceptionally fresh and reflects the changes in that community as they happen (not in 18 months when the van comes around again).

Hundreds of thousands of average people (almost 400,000 at present) participate in this effort by mapping on foot, on bikes, from map images and other sources. They collect all the base map data that is captured by the commercial organizations and then add layer after layer of rich information about their world and what is important to them and others (in many zoos, for example, they have mapped which animals are in which cages). They add information that is relevant and interesting to them, and because of that, the map becomes more interesting and relevant to everyone who uses it. With each layer of rich information, the map can be viewed from another perspective that highlights and reflects different aspects that are important to the people who need it.

This job is impossible without a crowd of people, who really care, on the ground providing the continuous stream of edits that make and keep the models of the real world that we use aligned and correct and constantly deepening in detail. Crowdsourcing is the only model that can enable this hyper local, vertical map of the world that is always up to date and always evolving.

At Cloudmade we take this resource and combine it with other traditional and nontraditional sources of information to create a model of the world that enables and powers a host of innovative applications and services that reflect the real world and the different needs and interests of the people who consume these applications and services.

To me, one key reason that Crowdsourcing is important, is because it democratizes the map and moves the decision about what is important in a map back from the large commercial organizations and into the hands of the people.

This article was written by Jim Brown, CTO at Cloudmade.