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May 2, 2011 By Andy Opsahl
Local governments may be posting enough data for developers to create novel applications, but not enough for them to make apps that a profitable number of citizens would pay to use, contends Daniel Odio, CEO and co-founder of mobile Web consulting firm PointAbout Inc.
Odio envisions dazzling possibilities for private-sector mash-ups of government open data, but doesn’t think enough open data is offered to create those mash-ups. Odio would like to see a world in which technology automatically delivers data a person might want before he or she asks for it. This already happens with applications like Internet radio site Pandora, which automatically sends an alert when a friend on Facebook likes the song we’re listening to.
“It knows you don’t want to buy gas from BP because of the oil spill, and so your phone tells you, ‘Hey, stop at the Exxon gas station that’s on the way to your destination,’” Odio said. “Literally the mobile device is letting you live your life in a better way. You can make better decisions because of this mash-up of data.”
Sivak agrees that developers need more data for better mash-ups, but he suggests that developers lobby governments for the specific data sets they want. He said developers need to give open data advocates within government good talking points to make cases for those requests.
“Part of the problem right now is we’re just saying, ‘Release data for data’s sake because we want to be transparent. Release data because somebody out there might do something with it.’ I don’t think that’s enough to really convince the bureaucrats that it’s worth spending limited resources on,” Sivak remarked.
He said a viable solution would be for governments to establish a formal process for submitting requests. Sivak cautioned, however, that developers would need to also foster relationships with like-minded individuals within the government who could advocate for releasing the data.
You may use or reference this story with attribution and a link to
http://www.govtech.com/e-government/Apps-Contest-Winners-Need-Better-Government-Data.html
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Being in an organization that manages credit card reading parking meters, the ParkIt DC folks are disconneting reality from thier vision. What the app developers failed to consider is that unless the municipality is willing to spend huge dollars to put sensors in the streets under each and every parking spot, then the live feeds from the meters regarding the status of paid spaces is meaningless to their application. Many people pay for more time than they really use because it is much cheaper to pay for an extra half hour than to pay for the ticket when you arrived back 5 minutes too late. An app that relies on the payment information will inevitably send folks diving past open spaces to find an "unpaid" yet occupied space(because the vehicle has a ticket), which is not the same as an "unpaid AND unoccupied" space. It only has to happen once before I am not paying for that app! From the parking enforcement side, the tickets are not yet written by the system because without the sensors, an unpaid space is not an idication that a violation should be written. It still takes a person to see a vehicle in a space that is not paid for a ticket to be issued. I agreed it is coming, but understand why it cannot be an "insanely useful" app today. Next time we dig up the street, if we have extra money lying around, then we might consider adding the sensors, but when parking is only a dollar or so an hour, why bother??? Where is the ROI???