[OSM-talk] Released: OpenMaps for iOS v4.0. An idea how to increase OSM awareness.

[Tim Waters]

Cool idea - I can see how it can help the OSM project.

There are a couple of things.

1) What to do about users adding the same point, but differently. For
example user A goes "I'm at McDonalds, it's a cafe", user B goes I'm
at Mac Donalds, it's a fast food restaurant" for the same location.
What one or two of the most popular chicken apps do is show these
points one after the other. What the OSM database could see is that
there's multiple points for the same thing.

2) The popular chicken apps are games. This is why they are popular.
You gotta add in game mechanics for it to work, coupons, badges and
other "fun" stuff. Without the gameplay, it becomes much like existing
services like http://mapme.at - personal location story applications.

I think the idea is great and potentially disruptive, but would need
to be promoted to the mass market, not just loveable geo freetards :)


Tim



On 16 December 2010 20:46, Zsombor Szabó <zsombor at gmail.com> wrote:
> Today we released OpenMaps version 4.0 in Apple's App Store. It is a free
> map app based on OpenStreetMap and we believe it is the best. It is as slick
> as the built-in (Google) Maps application and if you ever used Maps on an
> iPhone you know that it's not a little thing to say.
> But this is not the reason why I am writing this email.
> I believe in OpenStreetMap. I really do. I want it to be the de facto map
> that everyone uses and I think most of you feel the same way. I also believe
> that OpenStreetMap is not getting the deserved user attention that we want
> it to receive. I think I have a solution how we could expose it to more
> users with OpenMaps for iOS.
> How? Just launch OpenMaps, find your favorite bar/pub/restaurant/etc. on the
> map, tap on it (yes, in contrast with Maps you can tap on POI icons in
> OpenMaps without needing to search for them; innovative, isn't it?) and send
> out a checkin tweet. A typical tweet will look like this:
> http://twitter.com/#!/zssz/statuses/7396822796476416
> Isn't Foursquare, Gowalla and now Facebook doing something similar you ask?
> Exactly. And look how popular they are. I believe that tweeting (checking
> in, commenting, etc.) about OSM POIs is a great way to increase OSM
> awareness. And it is a great way to share places with friends as when users
> tap on an openmaps:// link they will be shown the respective OSM element in
> OpenMaps (if they have the app installed on their device). They can even
> follow the recent Twitter conversation about an OSM element within the app.
> So if they want to share with the public that they serve amazing coffee at
> openmaps://n/957085286 then they can do that easily.
> I am enthusiastic about this and encourage you to adopt this because I
> really think it is a great idea to increase OSM awareness. Maybe it will
> catch on, maybe not. It all depends on the critical mass.
> Best regards,
> Zsombor Szabo, CEO
> IZE, Ltd.
> P.S. for OSM Announce list members: If you have questions or have feedback,
> then reply on the (cced) OSM talk list.
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