Capitalising on the Google Maps pricing announcement

Any leverage in adding to the PR - OSM is updated daily by the global volunteer network with the new data being available within hours. - - or similar?

Anyone used MAPCAT yet? 100,000 views per month free (so 4 times Google's new offering). https://www.mapcat.com/planpricing/

@brianprangle The recent Docker link I saw was in Weekly OSM 409. It links to this reddit discussion: https://www.reddit.com/r/openstreetmap/comments/8i07jl/i_created_an_uptodate_docker_file_to_run_your_own/

I think, on reflection, the idea of a press release is a bit old hat and will not grab editors' attention. A better approach might be a web page on osmuk.org with info on how to switch (see attached) with emails/dev forum postings/social media plants pointing to the page. I'll compile a list of publications I think we should email.

This is also an opportunity for devs to make some money and could kick start our idea of compiling a catalogue of developers with skills who want to be hired.
June starts tomorrow and I think we need the web page up overthe weekend and the campaign to start next week- gives us 10 days of publiclity effort

Anyone got an image that we can use with the webpage text Brian has written?

First go at collecting press contacts. It would be good to have a campaign map of who's going to post to which relevant forum etc.
We need an intro for the email/forum plant to point to the web page
Something along the lines of " Many online services that rely on Google Maps will be reconsidering their options in light of the upcoming changes in Google's terms on June 11 which will increase their costs significantly. Read here[link to web page] how OpenStreetMap and its ecosystem of online map providers can ease the pain by providing free or low cost options"

@Harry Wood would be good to have more of your insight on all this

We're missing some of our UK options (e.g. thunderforest) so I shall add those and post the article to the website. Thanks.

Posted. By the way the tile usage policy is not as extreme as you wrote. To avoid conflicting info I just went with a few quotes from the policy instead: https://operations.osmfoundation.org/policies/tiles/

I have just spent several days finding out what I can do with OSM and what WP Plugins are available. There is a huge number of websites that just need a simple mapping solution - a map with some formatting parameters and a marker (or anof markers).

I used Google Maps and a plugin called Responsive Google Maps | by imbaa. It usually took just a few minutes to implement a map on a website.

As a result of the Google changes, I looked for an alternative solution (it took ages doing the research) but have now managed to sort out a replacement system. Unfortunately my previous 5-10 minute implementation is more like an hour and changes are not easy as the tools are not fully developed.

All OSM needs to do is make it easy for developers to implement an alternative solution for simple maps and markers. Developers will find you so you don't need to find them. None of my clients now use Google maps and they are so grateful that they don't need to register with Google and provide their card details.

There are lots that can be done to improve the penetration of OSM but that is another story.

Tony M

Hi @tonym. Sorry to hear that you had so much trouble finding a good replacement. I would have assumed something like "Leaflet Map" is a good choice but perhaps this didn't meet your requirements. Which did you end up picking?

For my basic websites I used OSM. I looked at Leaflet Map and am experienting with it but am finding some of the things I need do not work. It is a good base but needs to be more robust. If that plugin is developed, it is a potential winner. I like the shortcode solution as I can autogenerate shortcades for multiple pages and posts.

OSM is no good for custom post types but Leaflet Map works so that is where I think I will end up.

I did not have time to spare so had to go with what I knew would deliver what was needed even though OSM is cumbersome.

Thanks for responding.

Have you tried umap? It's great for simple maps and map marker displays

"Reduce your costs by switching to OpenStreetMap". I'm liking the call to action on https://osmuk.org/ home page. As it is now 11 June, perhaps people could tweet about it...

Thanks Brian

Looks interesting - I will check it out properly when I get
chance. I did not know about umap.

Tony

Seems like google postponed their price change. It says here: https://developers.google.com/maps/current-pricing : "New product changes will go into effect starting June 11. New pricing changes go into effect starting on July 16,"

Switch2OSM explains the need for an API/library, but there is a higher level of "plugin" that are a wrapper for the library(OpenLayers/Leaflet) and give a list of options for tile providers. Tony has brought to the attention that maybe it should be mentioned on Switch2OSM, perhaps with a page of the best(most recently developed?) for common systems. A Wordpress plugin would make sense to list, but I don't know how many and what other systems should be listed (Drupal, Laravel, Ruby on Rails, etc), would it get unwieldy?

What happened to the list of different help options on OSM UK? I was just thinking it could be good to add Switch2OSM to that (for those that don't need to wiki or Q&A help).

I see TomTom are stressing some of the perceived negatives of Google Maps: forced upgrades; credit card required for free tier; lock-in; API limits.