The iBurgh app is coming to the Android Market the third week of January, at the latest, so says Pittsburgh City Councilman Bill Peduto. “iBurgh started as a conversation between Priya Narasimhan and I. I approached her because of our shared interest in hockey, and once I saw what she could do with YinzCam I wanted to hear her thoughts on opening up government.”
Peduto isn’t stopping with the Droid or just iBurgh. The Blackberry iBurgh app is next. And in 2010 Peduto hopes to follow in the footsteps of San Francisco and New York City in providing citizens with an “open data dump.” Pittsburgh has been on the cutting edge of open city government with iBurgh, Open Book Pittsburgh and other initiatives.
Also, be on the look out for a fantastic new tool for political bloggers of Pittsburgh. Monday, January 4th will be the first embed-able webcast of City Council meetings. They tested the software last week and expect an on-time launch.
This isn’t just a hours long YouTube style video. It is going to be search-able by speaker, bill or issue. If you’re interested in what Councilman Burgess said about an issue you can search for the issue and speaker to jump to their comments.
Peduto sees this as another way to keep people accountable. As a Pittsburgh City resident, I appreciate his efforts.
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