San Francisco (May 11, 2016) – MapJam, Inc. announced that OpenStreetMap (OSM) Founder Steve Coast has joined MapJam as an Advisor. Coast is a highly regarded voice in the open source and mapping communities. When he was exposed to the creative approach MapJam has taken with the use of OSM vector mapping tiles he joined the firm on the launch of MapJam for Enterprise Developers.
Launched in 2004, OSM is a collaborative project to create a free editable map of the world. OSM is considered a prominent example of volunteered geographic information.
Created by Steve Coast in the UK in 2004, it was inspired by the success of Wikipedia and the preponderance of proprietary map data in the UK and elsewhere. Since then, it has grown to over 2 million registered users, who can collect data using manual survey, GPS devices, aerial photography, and other free sources. This crowdsourced data are then made available under the Open Database Licence. The site is supported by the OpenStreetMap Foundation, a non-profit organization.
Once employing OSM mapping tiles, MapJam now offers free access to the simplest and most accessible developer tools for building mapping applications and data that work seamlessly with open source projects including Leaflet, Mapzen, and D3, as well as libraries that highlight creative functions from Font Awesome and kolor.js.
Driven by the high prices and often confusing and unrealistic terms from Google Maps and Mapbox, especially for customers starting to exceed free tiers and for enterprises developing private applications, the founders were convinced that streamlining and simplification of pricing and terms were greatly needed in the marketplace.
“We are honored to welcome Steve Coast to the MapJam Team. His deep understanding of mapping and support for the open source mapping community has made this a natural match.” said Jack Gonzalez, co-founder of MapJam.
“When I saw what MapJam did with OSM maps I was delighted and wanted to be part of the movement to get more affordable maps in the world.” remarked Coast. ”They have achieved the ultimate in simplicity for mapping tiles, with zero limitations. At last – some price competition for web maps!”
About MapJam
MapJam, originally from Australia, relocated to San Francisco and is a web and mobile map publishing and developer platform for mapping applications. MapJam offers OpenStreetMap maps that are simple to implement with simple pricing and terms. Launched in 2015, MapJam is a graduate of 500 Startups (Batch 14).