Mobile Behavior: an Omnicom Group Company

"Municipal" and "innovative" are two words rarely heard together, but New York City has been pleasantly surprising us lately. In the past few weeks, we've across several government-led efforts that use digital and mobile technology and a more open ethos to improve urban life.

In the vein of the U.S.'s DATA.gov initiative, the city rolled out the NYC BigApps program this week, an invitation for developers everywhere to get their hands dirty using the city’s data. With complete access to over 170 data sets, found on the NYC.gov Data Mine, it is expected that we’ll begin to see a series of innovative mobile and online applications. As the deputy mayor said during Tuesday's NY Tech Meetup, this is “just the beginning” and the city “plans to open more data sets in the future.” Hopefully we'll see useful applications like those built on San Francisco's BART data sets.

Another of Mayor Bloomberg’s hip initiatives is the 311 system, which is designed specifically for requests and complaints regarding problems like trash buildup or graffiti. To help create a user-friendly and convenient service, they have released an iPhone app that uses the built-in GPS and camera to help tag and submit cases.

The city is also creating tools to learn more about our environments, essentially using mobile to make the city clickable. Ever wonder how the local beavers and their habitat are doing? Now it’s possible to text them and through a series of vertically positioned plastic tubes receive an answer. Mobile also makes it possible to answer that on-the-spot question, like what you're looking at by texting DUMBOVIEW to 41411.

Mobile can truly transform how you experience the city, and we're hoping municipal agencies will continue to embrace open innovation and leading-edge technology. Now the question is: will Bloomberg become the "mayor" of City Hall on Foursquare?