Google Maps – Mollweide

Housing.co.in is one of the hottest new startups in the real estate sector, making use of GIS to help customers find their ideal house. Launched in 2012, Housing.co.in is a fully funded startup based in Mumbai and recently managed to raise $2.5 M in funding from Nexus Venture Partners.

The main feature that sets Housing apart from other web-based real estate search portals is the use of maps with a POI (Point of Interest) based search to make comparisons easy for the user. You can search for locations on rent/sale within a distance range from a POI and the results will show up as markers on the map. The special thing about these markers is that they come up as labels with the size of the house (1RK / 1BHK / 2BHK, et al) and hovering over a marker shows the rent/price of the place and whether it’s unfurnished / semi-furnished / furnished.

If you find the size and price tag good enough, you can click on the marker to show more detailed information about the place. This is where Housing.co.in obliterates the opposition. Not only does every entry have a series of photographs and list of features, but also an option to show the places of interest nearby such as banks / ATMs, schools, nightlife, liquor stores, shopping malls and a dozen more categories. Clicking on each category actually shows these features on the map so you get a sense of how far the closest facility is to the location.

Technologically, Housing uses a custom styled Google Map as the basemap with custom markers and the use of buffers to query their database. The interface is quite similar in look and feel to the new Google Maps which makes it very intuitive. They also have an in-house Data Science lab where they constantly improve on their database. You can also find a Housing.co.in app on the Google Play store, which already has a decent number of users and a high approval rating.

Currently, the service is available in most of the NCR, Mumbai, Pune, Hyderabad and Bangalore. If you are searching for a place to live in any of these cities, I highly recommend you use their service. I know I will.

Housing.co.in Secures $2.5 Million in Funding from Nexus Venture Partners (nextbigwhat.com)

May of 2013 was an exciting time if you are into maps. While Google overhauled Google Maps, OpenStreetMap has unveiled the iD editor by MapBox as it’s new, official map editor.

The iD editor by MapBox is a browser-based OpenStreetMap editor built with HTML5 and JavaScript, meaning that you don’t need to install anything and it works just as well on your mobile as it does on your computer! iD is open source, meaning that if you’re a developer and want to add a new feature to the editor, you can!

iD is designed to be easy to use and comes with a walkthrough, which gives step-by-step guidance to help you start putting features on the map and help is always available should you be stuck somewhere.

Only time will tell whether the new editor propels OpenStreetMap as the world’s best provider of crowd-sourced maps. In the meanwhile, here are some links to get you interested: