Our world is made of data, and it is the very foundation of technology. Early on, tech companies learned that opening their APIs was a best practice to encourage innovation (i.e., crowdsourcing). Finally the public sector is recognizing this necessity as well. Often teeming with useful information, municipal services are releasing grips on “their” data, letting everyone help design the future in 2009 and beyond.
Portland and, most recently, the Bay Area are (as usual) the early adopters, releasing the API codes to receive data related to their respective transit systems. From train arrival times to service delays, this data is of interest to millions. Now, developers are free (beyond standard licensing agreements) to let their imaginations run wild and create applications that harness transit information.
Dennis Crowley of NYU’s ITP put it well:
“Imagine building this into an iPhone app or something so whenever you are standing over a subway station (GPS!) the phone can tell you whether it’s worth going in and paying the $2 (vs. you sitting around waiting 45 mins for the next train)…. or your phone buzzing with an SMS before you leave your apt for work / airport/ night out letting you know the F train is on fire / delayed 20 minutes / etc.”
In the new year, we hope to see more open-source initiatives in the public sector. Though human ingenuity will find a way, regardless. Just look at the rise of mapping parties to collect geographic data. Projects like OpenStreetMap are being built largely from scratch using GPS traces, aiming to promote new and interesting uses of this data. The folks at Sense Networks have also found some ingenious ways to capture and analyze massive amounts of real-time location data to aggregate and predict consumer trends.
In 2009 and beyond, keeping data (transportation, geographic, location, medical, population, economic…) under wraps will just hold back people from using it in creative, productive, and often unpredicatable ways.
Personally, we’re looking forward to a “Finish Drink or Catch Subway?” app.
Cheers to the New Year!!!
- Alli and Laura
