Why build your own? There are several free web applications out there that help cities interface with their citizens. Christian Madera picks the best.
Madera talks about well-known tools like Google Maps and Twitter, but also many lesser-known ones like WuFoo and BatchGeo.
He writes, "Tools like Todaysmeet make it easy to set up a feed that can be displayed on a projector, and offer the ability to save a transcript of all tweets over a period of time with a specific hashtag included. This transcript could then be analyzed for key ideas that came out of the meeting. (This could be as easy as running it through a word cloud tool such Wordle). Also during a meeting, web tools like PollEverywhere and TextTheMob let audience members respond to poll questions by simply sending a SMS message or Tweet from their cellphone, and provide instant results."
FULL STORY: Free Web 2.0 Apps For Cities
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Institute for Housing and Urban Development Studies (IHS)
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