Games

I think community generation of data is a good thing, but community in and of itself isn't enough. I'm going to go out on a limb here and predict that, soon, any "community" enterprise that is not also a rewarding, multi-dimensional game will struggle. OpenStreetMap (for example) succeeds because it's full of good games: community building, sticking it to The Man, and winning respect in the industry are just the obvious ones. Are there any games worth playing at TeleAtlas? That's the crux.

Comments

Re: Games

Author: Ed Parsons

I think a key part of the Tom Tom deal is automation, and the potential for the community to update data and provide statistical traffic information while just driving.. I agree for active user input fun needs to be a big part of the motivation !!

Re: Games

Author: Yves Moisan

Ed says : "for active user input fun needs to be a big part of the motivation" I wonder if "data collection sprints" leisure activities as in folks doing geocaching could be feasible? A lot of folks have spare time they'd like to volunteer for, so there could be lists of problems to tackle e.g. "delineation of marsh areas in NW Minnesota" that could act as nucleation centers for community activity. Where to put those lists and how to manage them is another ball game. As a first step, government departments in need of data could call upon their citizens for fun data collection parties :-)