Show us a better way on a map

As many of us have always suspected, geospatial data is a great foundation to finding and publishing all types of government information, so it should not be unexpected that many of the entries for the Show us a better way competition to develop applications using public sector information make use of geospatial technology.

These move beyond the simple map mash-ups including for example some mobile LBS applications.

It’s wonderful to see organisations like the Dept. for Transport, Post Office and the OS opening up their databases via API’s and simple click through licenses. These are of course temporary arrangements in many cases, but this is a great opportunity to prove the potential of publishing this information in this way.

For many years the supporters of both sides of the argument around the release of public sector information  based their argument not on real evidence, but on dogmatic positions.. hopefully we will soon have some real world examples to develop evidence to conclude the arguments one way or the other.

Written and submitted from the Google Office, London.