Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) has hired CloudeMade and OpenStreetMap (OSM) founder Steve Coast as the “Principal Architect for Bing Mobile.” He will also work as the liaison of the “open map community.” About 320,000 people have participated in the OpenStreetMap project.

AOL has launched an open source United Kingdom based project called OpenStreetMap. OpenStreetMap focuses on user-created mapping and AOL is putting $1 million behind the project. Even though the project is U.K. based, users can navigate to use-created maps in any country.