OSM 2008: A Year of Edits from ItoWorld on Vimeo.

This video animates an entire year’s worth of edits to the OpenStreetMap.org project. OSM is a public and open database of maps encompassing the whole world — think of it as an open, free version of Google Earth.

Edits are made, wiki-style, by contributors around the globe. Each white flash in this video represents a new edit being made to the database during 2008.

From the OSM site:

Some edits are a result of a physical local survey by a contributor with a GPS unit and taking notes, other edits are done remotely using aerial photography or out-of-copyright maps, and some are bulk imports of official data.

There are some astonishing moments, like when a massive data dump fills in almost the entirety of India, or when a huge blotches of white suddenly appear in Eastern Europe and in North America.

The animation was created by Itoworld, and is licensed under the Creative Commons.

Other Where 2.0 Coverage:

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• Where 2.0: New Yahoo Tools Add Location to Unstructured Web Data
• Where 2.0: Google Launches a Data API for Google Maps
• New Wave of Apps Build ‘Where’ Into the Web