The treasure trove of government data is being plumbed by a growing number of analysts and applications developers as reported by the New York Times. Among the most inventive is Stumble Safely, a guide to walking home from Washington, D.C. bars while avoiding crime hot spots (I have to admit that I took an illuminating middle-of-the-night walk through the capital a few years back — there’s nothing quite like seeing the Lincoln Memoiral when you are alone at 3 in the morning. Dangerous, perhaps. Breathtaking, definitely.)
San Francisco has been at the forefront of opening up the data vault: check out DataSF. Also at the head of the pack are Washington and New York.
Have you used new sources of government data for analysis or to build an innovative application? Has your city been making data available? Is there data you’d like to get your hands on? Get the conversation going.
