SeeClickFix Helps You Report Issues In Your Hood

Last night at the NY Tech Meetup, SeeClickFix provided a demo of their service. The service is pretty simple in concept but has the chance to be very powerful in terms of actual value to communities around the country. SeeClickFix describes their service as, “report(ing) non-emergency issues and receive alerts in your neighborhood.”

My simple description of SeeClickFix is, “see something, report something.” If you see graffiti on a building, a pothole, street lights out of service, running hydrants, or even prostitution, you can easily use SeeClickFix to report the issue to the local government for handling. Many times the local government won’t know something is out of service or a condition needs to be corrected unless someone reports it. SeeClickFix makes the reporting process easy and adds a community layer. The more people that report the same issue, the likelyhood for a speedy fix rises.

SeeClickFix takes the reports and then sends them to the local government in the affected area. Mobile will be huge for SeeClickFix for instant reporting rather than trying to remember to report the issue later. There are SeeClickFix mobile apps for the iPhone, Blackberry and the Android version is coming soon.

Here’s the page from Philly — there are issues reported ranging from potholes to prostitution to vagrants to a broken stop sign and broken garbage cans. Once the locality “acknowledges” the issue, a note is posted — this is the first step to getting the issue resolved. RSS and XML feeds are available to monitor any location or topic you are interested in.

I know the next time I am near Queensboro Plaza where the road is so busted I am glad that I am in a rented Zipcar, I will snap a photo and report the 8,000 potholes. Here’s an overview video of how SeeClickFix works: