New York City Opens Public Data to App Developers

By William Fenton

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New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has opened up city databases to urban entrepreneurs in an effort to spark an explosion of new tech businesses and information-based apps.
The creators of both apps—and 12 other finalists—gathered last Thursday to hear Bloomberg announce the winner of the city's second annual Big Apps data competition. Judged by a panel of app experts including Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, Foursquare co-founder Naveen Selvadurai, and Betaworks CEO John Borthwick, this year's competition delivered a $10,000 grand prize to Roadify, an iPhone app that distributes subway, bus, and driving alerts.
Ten thousand dollars may not sound like much in the city of multimillion dollar apartments and $4 coffees, but for small developers, the award can jumpstart success. The developers of last year's winner, MyCityWay, said that the win motivated them to quit their Wall Street day jobs and turn their application into a full-fledged business. One year later, the company has secured $5 million in external funding and expanded from New York into 50 other cities.
CNN Money reports that, armed with a bounty of information on everything from crime to public health to traffic, tech entrepreneurs are combing once-unavailable data for new public apps and Web sites. The city hopes that the access will open up the city and catalyze new local businesses.
"As you're moving to an era where social media is increasingly important, there's no better way to test the network effect then in New York City," New York City Economic Development Corporation president Seth Pinksy told CNN. "It's a great example of crowdsourcing for the purpose of economic development."
New York has released more than 350 public data sets and so far, more than 50 teams have risen to the challenge. Take Sportaneous, a location-based Web site and iPhone app that helps News Yorkers find and join nearby sports games. Or how about DontEat.at, a Foursquare tie-in that will alert you if your restaurant has health code violations.
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