Mapping.

Using open data, MapBox is taking on the big players in online maps. Now they want to fix satellite view.

In February 2013, imagery specialist Charlie Loyd was looking for a job. He’d been working on a method to make beautiful satellite imagery and needed better resources to complete the project. So he made a comparison image of the northern tip of Greenland and posted it to Twitter. Three minutes later, MapBox replied. Soon after, Loyd was hired. The first fruits of that collaboration went live today, with a massive overhaul to MapBox’s satellite layer.

MapBox is a mapping startup that offers users a platform for making custom maps based on OpenStreetMap and other open data. To understand why it was so eager to scoop up Loyd, we need to do a little demonstration.

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