Big Apps Archive

We covered the launch of the Big Apps competition here in NYC back in October. Today the voting has opened for the “popular choice” which will award two of the apps with cash prizes and a dinner with Mayor Michael Bloomberg. There are other cash awards which will be judged by the panel selected by contest administrator ChallengePost which is made up of their investors and other NYC venture capitalists. I am unsure if an app can win a popular choice prize and a judge-selected prize.

We provided a random list of ten of the apps this past weekend.  Gothamist noted that the broken meters app is their favorite so far. There really is nothing as awesome like seeing a broken meter FAIL sign.

Over the next week or so we will highlight all of the submitted applications in groups. The categories include events, living in NYC (largest category), developer tools, exploring NYC and eating in NYC.

Please go ahead and vote for your favorites and leave a comment with the apps you liked the best. The developers created the apps for free and need your support. You don’t need to be located in NYC to vote and you’ve got until January 7, 2010 to select your favorite.

We covered the launch of the Big Apps competition here in NYC back in October. Mayor Bloomberg noted, “…encourage talented application developers to create innovative online and mobile applications to serve New York City residents, businesses, and visitors.”

The entry period has closed and I thought it would be interesting to highlight 10 of the apps that were submitted. The entire list of submitted applications is available to peruse as well. I selected the 10 apps below completely at random — these are NOT the only finalists. One of the important aspects to remember when you visit one of the Big Apps entries is that the data that is displayed was provided by the city. What this means is that the app (should) be showing everything that meets your desired criteria — but only to the point that the data was provided to the developer. There is a nice variety of apps and some pretty creative ideas!

Update: the voting period has started – check out our post with a link to all of the entrants you can vote from.

Continue reading “Meet 10 NYC RANDOM Big Apps Contenders” »

The 2010 version of this contest is now live!

We’ve written about NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s Media2020 plan to help boost the media industry in NYC. Part of the initiative is to strengthen the way the city shares data with the public. Earlier this year we saw the launch of NYC Big Apps Ideas which offered a way to crowdsource the ideas that might eventually be developed as part of the NYC Big Apps program which is launching today.

Bloomberg has posted a welcome message on the site and he notes, “Today, the City launched the inaugural NYC BigApps Competition to encourage talented application developers to create innovative online and mobile applications to serve New York City residents, businesses, and visitors. By developing these apps, you can help us make City government more accessible to all New Yorkers.”

There are 170 data sets that developers and entrepreneurs can work with. The data ranges from voting districts, school districts, citywide events schedules and restaurant inspections. I didn’t see anything related to the transit system listed which is a bit disappointing considering how much I think we could help people move around the city using technology.

Continue reading “NYC Big Apps Competition to Find New Uses for City Data” »