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Flood of government data fuels rise of city apps
Posted: Nov 26, 2011 12:09 PM by AP Posted by James H Egbert
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - When Ben Berkowitz wanted some graffiti on his street cleaned up, he called the city. They put him on hold. As he sat there, he found himself thinking that his neighbors had probably called in with the same complaint, but he had no way of knowing.
A few years later, the New Haven, Conn., resident's app, SeeClickFix, lets residents in cities around the country file public requests for city services straight from their mobile phones, just one of hundreds of new apps that let citizens digitally engage with their local governments.
Across the country, geeks are using data that city officials are dumping on the Web to create everything from smartphone tree identifiers to neighborhood crime notifiers.
(Copyright 2011 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
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