It’s quite the big week for cool technology getting a lot of limelight. Today Nestoria demonstrated that they’re using OpenStreetMaps to display some of their properties.

The quality of the resulting maps from data gathered by “people on bikes” is rather incredible. Granted, the maps are currently mostly used around places like the Isle of Wight that have super-good coverage due to the enviously fun mapping parties.

It’s interesting in that a very commercial site is using and supporting an open-initiative to gather free geodata and finds it high enough quality to use for selling high-priced items to customers. So instead of paying continual royalties to large mapping suppliers, or dealing with possibly incompatible (or variable) terms of service, companies can help guide and support open-source projects with the desired functionality, and get to use the resulting products in a much more amenable manner.

And to give them extra-special open-source goodness, Nestoria supported the development of Mapstraction, the free and open-source “cross-mapping” javascript library that is used in GeoPress.