Crowdsourcing through an iPhone App-- CreekSide!

I love my iPhone and just last night were hunting for my next favorite app!

I came across a great usage of an iPhone app for crowdsourcing...for a greater good.  It is called Creekside .. click here to learn more. 

This application enables everyone to contribute to cleaning up our waterways -- crowdsourcing if you would for the world!

What is crowdsourcing?  To me, it is a world of the future.  It involves leveraging the "crowds" or all of us on the blogsphere to enhance products or services, provide a point of view, or even better the world. 

In this example, Creekside involves crowdsourcing problems with our waterways.

How do you get started?  You can download this from the Apple App Store and is free.  It is very easy to use -- it took me only seconds!!  

First, you see a waterway -- like a creek or lake that I stopped by yesterday. 

Use your iPhone to take a picture and then upload the following information:

  • Water level (dry, some or full)
  • Flow rate (still, slow or fast)
  • Trash (none, some, a lot)
  • What happens next?

    This social application then aggregates the data.  You can see what others have uploaded or written -- that's the crowdsourcing magic! 

    As the data is consolidated, it is shipped to the water control boards in the local regions.

    Watch the why s of the application!

    [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/v/_--6KAptDL4&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&version=3" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowScriptAccess="always" width="640" height="390">]

    Do you have another great Crowdsourcing Application?  I'd love to see it.


    WII Dance 2! A Social Game!!

    OK!  I admit it.  My arms are sore.  I can't get "That's Not My Name" lyrics out of my head.   Yep...I am playing the new WII Dance 2 game with my daughters.

    Besides this being absurdly fun and a great way to embarrass the kids while I jam away,  these social games on the WII really enable social interaction unlike games played alone.

    Gaming is at a crossroads.   Gaming and Social Media are intersecting -- not just at gaming but also in many companies.   Social media will change every aspect of business and their business models just as it will with gaming.  It will change the way we play games .. aka Dance 2, and who plays games aka  me and what a game is.   The world we see today will change in the next 5 years with gaming being part of education for Fortune 500 companies,  enabling the disabled to be better equipped for the world, and for even generating demand for goods and services.

    The new generation learns from games ... and will expect this style of learning and fun to  be prevalent in all their applications of the future.

    Who knew that a simple WII game could impact the world!

    What do you think?