Fun With Data

Alastair Otter | MyBroadband | January 4, 2012

Crowdmap is not just a cool tool for mapping data but also a fantastic way to collect additional data. Crowdmap can be used to track geographic reports on just about any event. It’s built on the Ushahidi platform which was originally built to monitor election violence in Kenya, but is today used for a range of mapping services.

Crowdmap can be used to collate reports from around a country (or even globally) and map those onto interactive maps. Users can log reports using the web, e-mail, SMS or any of the smartphone applications available. Incident reports can include links to video, websites and other data as well as the standard location information.

In its most serious form it could be used to track disasters such as floods, fires or even election results. It can just as easily be used to track your company’s various branches or the services they provide; or it could be used to map sales of a product across the country. Even better, evolving crowdmaps can be played back to reflect changes over time...