Hi friends,

As an experiment to see how we can best help OpenStreetMap grow we’re partnering with the MapScaping podcast (our favorite geospatial podcast) to help promote OSM-based projects. You can apply here.

Read on for all the details and the background:

UPDATE - Winners Announced

The winners have been announced

What are we doing?

MapScaping is a popular geospatial podcast with thousands of listens per episode and a large social media footprint (See below for detailed audience numbers).

As an experiment we have purchased exclusive sponsorship of four episodes, and are donating these slots to small OpenStreetMap projects, as a way to raise awareness of and help kickstart these projects.

Selected projects will work with MapScaping to create ads (audio and visual branding on social media) that will run in the coming weeks and months. The projects will get the same ad packages (and thus also exposure) typically purchased by large geospatial companies.

The ads will run over the coming months.

Specifically you will receive:

  • 30-second promotional message at the start and end of a podcast episode

  • Your logo and links on the front page of MapScaping for two months

  • A mention with logo from the MapScaping twitter account

Who is eligible?

Any “project” using OpenStreetMap. By project we mean tools, technologies or services. It could be a pure open source technology project, an NGO, or a for-profit start-up. We’ve intentionally left the definition vague to cast as broad a net as possible.

If your idea makes significant use of OpenStreetMap please feel free to apply.

Applications will be accepted until the 15th of October, 2022.

How can you apply?

Please fill out our very brief application form, we will then be in touch in the coming weeks.

Who will be selected?

It’s hard to know until we see what sorts of projects apply, but our goal is to support projects that can, with a bit of advertising, reach the largest number of people. Preference will be given to projects that, due to their newness or non-commercial nature, typically don’t have the resources to advertise themselves.

It’s an experiment, we will see how it goes, but we are committed to at least four episodes.

Why are we doing this?

Since OpenCage started (now over 8 years ago!) our mission has been to make it easy to use open geodata.

Again and again we have seen the following pattern: Customers find us because they need geocoding, but they know nothing about open data in general or OpenStreetMap specifically. Then, as they come to depend on the service, they start to ask questions. They find a problem, and we explain how they can edit OpenStreetMap themselves. They have the “aha!” moment of realizing they can edit and improve OpenStreetMap themselves.

In short, the customer makes the journey from open data ignorance, to open data consumption, to open data production. The best part of course being that everyone benefits as a result, including us.

We would like to see that process replicated around other OpenStreetMap use cases. Our hope is that by helping these projects gain traction they can get to critical mass more quickly, and thus also set off the chain reaction of open data contribution. Being featured on MapScaping can be the spark that lights the fire and helps these projects grow.

So let’s do it. If you have an OpenStreetMap-based project - it could be a start-up, a tool or service, an open-source project, or whatever, that you would like to make known to the wider geospatial community, please apply today.

We look forward to hearing more about your projects on MapScaping!

Ed

Update: the winners have now been announced

The fine print:

  • Actually, MapScaping is only our second favorite geospatial podcast. Our very own Geomob podcast is obviously our favorite. But luckily it’s not really a contest, you can listen to both and the other great geospatial podcasts.

  • MapScaping has wide reach in the global geospatial community, with each episode downloaded about 2,600 times in the week after being published, 3,500 after 30 days, and 6,500 times after the first year. The MapScaping.com site gets around 30,000 organic visits a month, and the MapScaping twitter account has more than 38,000 followers.

  • Never heard of OpenCage and want to learn more about us? Start on our “about us” page. BTW - this is only one of many things we do to support OpenStreetMap specifically, and geo-innovation generally.

  • Wait, Ed, if the MapScaping podcast is so great, why haven’t you been on it? I have! Twice!