NYC BIGAPPS COMPETITION draws 100+ submissions! Brilliant! Go vote!
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
NEW YORK CITY ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION RECEIVES OVER 100submissions FOR INAUGURAL nyc bigapps competition Public Voting for “Popular Choice Application” Award Winners Opens
Today. Fostering Technological Innovation and Creating More
Transparency in City Government are Part of the Bloomberg
Administration’s Five Borough Economic Opportunity Plan New York City, December 15, 2009 – New York City Economic Development
Corporation (NYCEDC) today announced that 112 applications were
submitted for the inaugural NYC BigApps Competition, the largest
number of applications submitted to an open government initiative
nationwide. The NYC BigApps Competition, launched by Mayor Bloomberg
and Deputy Mayor for Economic Development Robert C. Lieber in October,
made more than 170 City datasets available to software developers to
create new digital applications for New York City residents and
visitors. The Competition was open to individuals, start-up companies,
and non-profit organizations with fewer than 50 employees, further
developing efforts by the City to facilitate development within the
entrepreneurial and start-up community. Thirteen winners will be
selected in total, including two Popular Choice Application winners
chosen by public vote through the Competition’s web site. Voting for
the Popular Choice Application begins today. “The inaugural NYC BigApps Competition has provided an outlet for
innovative software entrepreneurs from New York and around the country
to create new applications that will make New York City easier to
navigate, work in, and live in,” said NYCEDC President Seth W. Pinsky.
“Providing residents and visitors with more access to City data, and
supporting the City’s technology entrepreneurs are two ways that we
are working to transform the City’s economy into the innovation
capital of the 21st Century.” Applications were submitted by software developers from across New
York City and states nationwide. NYCEDC and the City’s Department of
Information Technology & Telecommunications (DoITT) coordinated with
nearly 30 City agencies and commissions to provide datasets for the
Competition that included City-wide tree census data, dog runs,
property records and sales, graffiti locations, WiFi hotspots, current
taxi medallion drivers and current medallions, and restaurant
inspection data. “In the 21st century government needs to do more than simply serve its
constituents – it needs to leverage their best ideas and expertise to
realize a better New York City together,” said DoITT Commissioner Paul
J. Cosgrave. “NYC BigApps allows us to tap the vast potential of
applicants from across the nation, utilizing technology to solve
problems for the City’s residents, businesses employees and visitors.” “The NYC Big Apps Competition engaged the media and technology
community in a new and innovative way,” said NYCEDC Vice President for
Media, Green, and Emerging Technology Kristy Sundjaja. “The
exceptional response that we received from developers not only
showcased the talent and diversity of our media and technology
entrepreneurs, but underscored the strength of the industry in New
York City.” Applications will be judged on criteria including benefit to
residents, visitors, and City government; originality; visual appeal;
effectiveness in increasing data accessibility and government
transparency; and potential commercial value. The judging panel is
comprised of a select group of technology entrepreneurs and
information technology-focused venture capital firms including: NY
Tech Meetup Co-founder Dawn Barber; Betaworks CEO John Borthwick;
Mahalo.com Co-founder Jason Calacanis; EDVenture Chairman Esther
Dyson; CEO of FirstMark Capital, Lawrence Lenihan; Gilt Groupe
Chairman and Founder Kevin Ryan; DFJ Gotham Ventures Co-founder and
Managing Director Danny Schultz; and Union Square Ventures Partner
Fred Wilson. Public voting and viewing of applications will take place on the NYC
BigApps site at http://www.nycbigapps.com/application-gallery
beginning today at 12:00 p.m. EST and will continue through 5:00 p.m.
EST on January 7, 2010. Judging for Best Overall Application (Grand
Prize, Second Prize, Third Prize, and five honorable mentions),
Investor’s Choice Application, Data Visualization Application, and
City Talent Award also begins today. Winners will be selected and
announced at an awards ceremony in February 2010 and will receive a
total of $20,000 in cash prizes. The NYC BigApps Competition was administered by ChallengePost, a New
York City-based start-up company that provides an online network for
organizations and individuals to create and offer competitions. Over
3,200 people from more across the nation and worldwide from countries
including India, Brazil, Australia, Mexico, and the United Kingdom
registered their support for the BigApps initiative on the web site.
Data compiled for the Competition will remain available to the general
public on the Data Mine site at www.nyc.gov/data; more datasets will
be added in the coming months. About NYCEDC New York City Economic Development Corporation is the City’s primary
vehicle for promoting economic growth in each of the five boroughs.
NYCEDC’s mission is to stimulate growth through expansion and
redevelopment programs that encourage investment, generate prosperity
and strengthen the City’s competitive position. NYCEDC serves as an
advocate to the business community by building relationships with
companies that allow them to take advantage of New York City’s many
opportunities. Find us on Facebook to learn more about NYCEDC projects
and initiatives. About the Five Borough Economic Opportunity Plan The Five Borough Economic Opportunity Plan is a comprehensive strategy
to bring New York City through the current economic downturn as fast
as possible. It focuses on three major areas: creating jobs for New
Yorkers today, implementing a long-term vision for growing the city’s
economy, and building affordable, attractive neighborhoods in every
borough. Taken together, the initiatives that the City has launched to
achieve these goals will generate thousands of jobs and put New York
City on a path to economic recovery and growth. # # #
My stunningly beautiful girls… Swoon.
—————
Jason@Calacanis.com | Mobile: 310-456-4900
http://www.calacanis.com | http://www.mahalo.com
Executive Assistant: admin@calacanis.com
Thanks Rose Marks for the framed baby photo…. Too kind!
—————
Jason@Calacanis.com | Mobile: 310-456-4900
http://www.calacanis.com | http://www.mahalo.com
Executive Assistant: admin@calacanis.com
New "Gladiator inspired" theme songs for This Week in Startups. Which one is your favorite? thx @KellerII #twist
from my boy www.twitter.com/KellerII
respek. which one you like best? I’m loving encore w/ gladiator. if this hadsome quotes from me from This Week in Startups, old Gillmor Gang rants
and maybe a This Week in Tech tirade…. wow. Genius. This Week in Startups superfans are the greatest!
Download now or listen on posterous
tao with gladiator.mp3 (3110 KB)
Download now or listen on posterous
roots with gladiator.mp3 (3209 KB)
Is Facebook unethical, clueless or unlucky?
Sent this to my email newsletter earlier today… you can join the list at www.bit.ly/jasonslist
UPDATED/RELATED (9:30AM December 14th): 1. Excellent post from Dan Gillmor on why he deleted his Facebook page, which supports my thesis below. 2. The EFF’s comments on Facebook’s horrific behavior is great supporting evidence. These two articles appeared DAYS before my rambling piece below. 3. Facebook reached out and asked me to do a call with them. This call will occur this afternoon. Please post updates below (or link to this story so I can link back).
==============================================
Title: Is Facebook unethical, clueless or unlucky?
Location: CalaCompound, Brentwood, CA
Date/Time: December, 13th 2009 11:20AM
Subscribers: 18,463
Republishing: Looking for someone to donate to charity
for web rights to newsletter: http://bit.ly/8Vql8G
===============================
Facebook proved again this week that they are either the most
unethical or clueless internet company in the world. An amazing
accomplishment since Facebook is also one of the most promising, and
certainly fastest growing, internet companies of all time. Perhaps
I’m being hyperbolic (who me?), or maybe they are a little of both,
but the fact remains they screw up on important issues almost as if
it’s a “best practice” to do so.
In case you missed it, when you logged into Facebook this week you
were road blocked with a popup explaining that they “we’re making some
changes to give you more control.” Sounds good, and like most users
looking to quickly get into a website or application, I simply clicked
through the message. How important could it be?
When faced with a TOS (Terms of Service) or license the world has been
trained to hit the word “agree,” and click, click, click until they
get to the actual website or software they were trying to get to in
the first place.
Everyone in the industry knows this, and certainly a company built off
of studying social behavior like Facebook would. Since the ToS is
considered a formality, it is up to technology companies–in fact our
industry–to behave. If we don’t behave well then we are going to get
regulated by clueless politicians and policy makers. That would suck
for everyone.
So What Happens When you Clickthrough?
===================
In this case, if you simply click through the windows you’ve exposed
all of your private Facebook information, including comments, friends,
pictures and status updates, to “everyone.” In other words clicking
through changes everything in Facebook terms–unlike every other
license or update screen you’ve experienced in your life.
I’m sorry, what the frack just happened? I turned over my friend list,
photos and status updates to everyone in the world? Why on earth would
anyone do that with their Facebook page?
The entire purpose of Facebook since inception has been to share your
information with a small group of people in your private network.
Everyone knows that and everyone expects that. In fact, Facebook’s
success is largely based on the face that people feel save putting
their private information on Facebook.
When you do get to the second page a series of confusing radio buttons
default–yes defaults–to giving everyone access to your social graph.
Wow. I’ve been using the internet since before images were supported.
I’ve been a member of every social network since Six Degrees and Ryze,
almost a decade before Facebook became available to the public, and I
was confused by their settings page. An average user, certainly, has
no idea what is going on by these changes.
So why is Facebook trying to trick their users?
Simple: search results.
Facebook is trying to dupe hundreds of millions of users they’ve spent
years attracting into exposing their data for Facebook’s personal
gain: pageviews. Yes, Facebook is tricking us into exposing all our
items so that those personal items get indexed in search
engines–including Facebook’s–in order to drive more traffic to
Facebook.
So why is this wrong?
==================
While there is nothing wrong with having a service that is “public by
default,” it is highly unethical to flip your users over to public in
a such a deceitful way
Twitter is, of course, public by default, and we all know that
Facebook is obsessed with Twitter innovations including their short
status updates, their API and most of all, their “open by default”
strategy.
Facebook has had a couple of innovations in their history, like their
application layer and news feed (which is now gone), but for the past
couple of years they’ve given up on innovation and focused on stealing
ideas from Twitter and out-executing them, while not caring about user
rights. This is challenging for Twitter, which is run by the highly
ethical Evan Williams and Biz Stone. In fact, those two guys are
massively conservative when it comes to their user base.
Facebook continues their non-stop copying of Twitter, and even after
the absurdly stupid “Facebook Beacon” debacle, they continue to try
and sneak unethical behavior past the masses–and the industry.
The result? They’re winning and winning big!
It is so depressing when one of our leading companies bases their
ethics on “will we get caught?” and perhaps more precisely: “if we do
get caught will it cost us anything in relation to the money we’ll
make when we go public?”
The Issue Facebook is creating for all Internet companies
===============================
Another problem Facebook is creating with their reckless behavior is
that they are simultaneously making users distrust the internet and
bringing the attention of regulators.
As an industry we should police ourselves and do everything we can to
create trust with users.
It would be great if the “adults” sitting around Zuckerberg’s cube
would explain to the Golden Child that just because he’s on the Forbes
billionaires list and he generates a mob of sycophants around him at
the TED conference, that doesn’t mean he gets a free pass to bring the
heat down on all of us.
Behave yourself dude!
How would you do it better?
====================
If Facebook was more concerned with ethics than world domination, they
would simply post a popup that said something like:
“Dear Facebook Members,
Good news, we’ve now added the option to share your content with
everyone! Be sure to check out this new feature here and be sure to
consider if you want to expose your content to the world before
changing your settings!”
Of course, that would result in 1% of users turning their service to
“everyone” (i.e. public) a month. It would take years to convert a
meaningful amount of users and their personal data into revenue
generating public objects. With Facebook’s IPO–the one that will save
Silicon Valley–around the corner, there is simply nothing we can do.
Facebook’s IPO and revenue growth trumps user’s rights, right?
Growth at all costs!
Long live the Golden Child!
Ticker: FCBK FTW!
Can I still get a friends and family allotment?
#fail
====================
Questions (hit reply, or post to your blog):
1. Is Facebook clueless, unethical or just unlucky? Why?
2. Will Facebook’s latest behavior result in more lawsuits and/or
industry regulation?
3. Do you trust Facebook with your information?
all the best,
Jason
====================
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Sent by Jason McCabe Calacanis to his friends.
902 Colorado Avenue
Santa Monica, CA 90401
Mobile: 310-456-4900
My assistant: admin@mahalo.com
====================
Upcoming Events:
Open Angel Forum, January 14th 2010. Los Angeles, CA
www.openangelforum.com
TechCrunch50 (Year Four!), September, 2010. San Francisco, CA
====================
If you’re reading this you need to move on…. this is the end of the
newsletter. Go check your twitter or Facebook page! Seriously, go
download www.gowalla.com or checkout www.gdgt.com and
www.challengepost.com (my three angel investments in 2009!).
Selling web rights to Jason's List (my email) for charity donation (media philanthropy) details:
Publishers (cc select friends/journos as an fyi),
I’m going to sell the web-rights to my email newsletter publishing towhoever makes a donation of $1,000 per newsletter to Bay Ridge Prep’s
Scholarship fund for the underprivileged. This is the private school in Brooklyn I’m on the board of. I donate
all my speaking fees to their scholarship fund, which helps
underprivileged kids from Brooklyn (think foster kids from Bed Stuy)
go to a private school with an average class size of 16. My hope is
that every year I can do 10-15 newsletters and generate $10-15k, which
would be matched by the school–putting a disadvantaged kid from
Brooklyn into private school for two years. So cool. I call this strategy “media philanthropy” — the trading of media
assets that are not normally monetized (think my blog, Mark Cuban’s
blog, Ted Leonsis blog, etc) to an entity that could monetize it.
Imagine what ESPN or the New York Times would pay Mark Cuban or Ted
Leonsis for the webrights to their (major) blog posts? What are Kanye
West and Britney’s blog posts worth to Rolling Stone, TMZ or AOL
Music? The possibilities are intriguing to me. As a former editor, I’m sure these newsletters will get enough inbound
links, re-tweets, buzz and page views to make it worth the $1,000 per
post price tag. If someone wants to buy the rights for the next ten
for $10,000 now I’m open to that. I will, of course, include Twitter,
Facebook, blog, etc. links to your post. Additionally I will mention
that you’ve bought the rights with the donation to charity in my email
newsletter (see below) which is now at 18k+ subscribers. Also, there
will be some good will created from making the donation to charity for
this content. When TechCrunch and BusinessInsider have reprinted my newsletter (with
permission) in the past they have rocketed to the top of TechMeme and
created major discourse (and SEO). These would make a nice monthly
addition to the Wall Street Journal, AllThingsD, Huffington Post,
AOL’s Technology Channel, New York Times, NYT Bits, Gawker/Valleywag
or Newser. Anyone who wants traffic, inbound links and intelligent
passionate discourse in the technology space. Thanks for considering this, and apologies for wasting your time if
you’re not interested. Very passionate about the scholarship program.
Feel free to forward to a publisher you think might be interested. Here is the email I’m publishing today as an example. all the best, Jason
