Big Apps

When we last checked in on the city's Gov 2.0 movement, the tech community was talking about rallying around Mayor Bloomberg's Big Apps contest, which will open up certain city data sets for programmers to create Web applications out of.

The first step of the contest, which is being administered by the NYC Economic Development Corporation, is a request for expressions of interest to determine what data the city decides to release:

Respondents to this RFEI are requested to submit written descriptions of City-related data they would like to see made public. These descriptions should provide as much detail as possible about the type and level of data desired. In addition, respondents are requested to describe how they envision the data being used in software applications that provide a useful service to City residents, visitors and government. The information gathered from this RFEI will be used to help the City decide how to prioritize the release of City data to the public in a format easily utilized by application developers. City data will be released or reformatted in connection with a related software application competition where contestants will develop applications that make it easier to live, work and play in New York City.

To help people navigate this process, a few members of the OpenGovNYC meetup will be hosting BigAppsDevCamp the next two Saturdays, Aug. 15 and 22.

Topics covered will include:

Brewer.

On Monday, June 29, a few hours before Gale Brewer was to attend the first City Council hearing on her sweeping open-data legislation, Mayor Michael Bloomberg unveiled a similar initiative during his live-Skyped keynote speech at the Personal Democracy Forum Conference—a contest called Big Apps, which is challenging software developers to create innovative Web applications out of data sets the city would make available in a programming-friendly format.

The announcement came as a surprise to Ms. Brewer, who said she had no knowledge of the mayor’s plans, and it seemed to overshadow her own proposal, which, unlike Big Apps, would open up all of the city’s public data to programmers and compile it on a single Web site. (The inaugural Big Apps would open up about 80 data sets based on “expressions of interest” submitted to the New York City Economic Development Corporation, which is administering the contest.)

As it turns out, the Bloomberg administration isn’t keen on Ms. Brewer’s bill. At the hearing that day, two administration officials testified that complying with the legislation would be burdensome and expensive—around $500 million, they said.

But Ms. Brewer, who chairs the Council’s Technology in Government Committee, is forging ahead. She stopped by the monthly OpenGovNYC meet-up at the downtown co-working space New Work City on Monday night, July 27, to give an update on where the legislation stands.

The official way to suggest what data the city should open up for its Big Apps contest is by responding to a Request for Expression of Interest that was issued through the NYC Economic Development Corporation.

But developers have set up a forum on D.C.'s Apps for Democracy Web site to start collecting, tracking and rating ideas for New York City data applications.

So far, the top-rated idea is to build a subway car tracking system for smart phones, although, as Philip Ashlock of The Open Planning Project points out in the comments section: "I don't think the city has the ability to release MTA data since the MTA is a state run agency." In second place is a proposal for a mobile SMS crime reporting application, and in third place a proposed free-WiFi map of the five boroughs.

See the full list after the jump.

Getty Images

This morning Mayor Michael Bloomberg kicked off the Personal Democracy Forum—a conference about the intersection of technology and politics—by announcing a new annual competition that awards cash prizes to Web developers who come up with innovative Internet and mobile applications using city data.

Mr. Bloomberg also said he'd take the grand-prize winner out to dinner.

For the first stage of the contest, which will be called Big Apps, the city will release what Bloomberg described as a “huge volume of data” from various city agencies. (That means the data will be made available in a machine-readable format that’s conducive to programming.) He gave the example of creating a mobile application out of the Health Department’s restaurant grades.

“What we’re trying to do here is create the connectedness that will benefit the city economically, civically and socially,” said Mr. Bloomberg, who was beamed in live on a huge projector screen via Skype. (He wasn’t able to attend the conference in person.)

The announcement appeared to be well-received by techies present at the conference, who quickly began spreading the word via (what else?) Twitter.

The mayor also said that when the “.nyc” top-level domain becomes available—that’s expected to happen in 2010—the city will create a Web site at data.nyc to house all of the data.