Facebook has acquired Mapillary, a company that is involved in showing street images through crowdsourcing. It is therefore an alternative to Google’s Street View and a sign that Facebook wants to do more with map material.
On Mapillary’s blog, the company explains that it has been acquired by Facebook, and that the team will be working on map services at Facebook. It therefore seems to be a so-called acquihire, whereby both the service and the people behind it are taken over. Detailed plans about what Facebook will do with Mapillary are not yet known.
Mapillary offers a Street View-like service where individuals can contribute to the mapping of streets and environments by uploading photos. The images are therefore available to everyone, and with the service Mapillary, with maps based on OpenStreetMap, is a competitor to Google’s Street View.
That will remain the case in the future, because Mapillary will continue to exist in its current form. Interestingly enough, Facebook chooses to also make Mapillary available for free to commercial users. Previously, only non-commercial use was allowed.
Facebook has been involved with mapping services for some time, and the Mapillary acquisition seems like confirmation that the company wants to expand such functionality on its site. Mapillary offers good coverage in Europe and the United States, but in the rest of the world there are still large parts that need to be provided with images.