Socrata Launches Apps Marketplace to Help Governments Accelerate Innovation and Provide New Constituent Services
Seattle, Washington (PRWEB) September 15, 2014 -- Socrata (http://www.socrata.com), a Seattle-based cloud software company focused exclusively on democratizing access to government data, today announced the launch of two key product innovations – The Socrata Apps Marketplace™ and Socrata Service Connect™.
A Pair of Cutting-Edge, Open Data Offerings
- The Socrata Apps Marketplace unlocks the full potential of the Open Data NetworkTM. It helps government buyers access the latest civic app innovations to increase constituent engagement; helps improve the quality of life for citizens with apps that are easy to find and easy to use; and helps civic app developers access the technical infrastructure and business models they need to successfully monetize their applications.
- Socrata Service Connect enables government organizations to make their constituent services data more transparent, accessible and understandable to tax payers and other key stakeholders, including staff, business owners and members of the media. Built on the Socrata platform and delivered as a turnkey cloud service, this application unlocks constituent services data in a visually appealing, mobile-responsive, intuitive and engaging interface. Additionally, it provides a powerful administrative interface that includes analytical tools that help administrators gain insight into the citizen services that people care about the most.
“We’re proud to introduce these latest breakthroughs, because they can greatly expand open data opportunities for virtually every government around the world,” says Kevin Merritt, Founder and CEO of Socrata. “We believe that open data is helping government in the 21st century become an innovation accelerator, not just a service dispensary. This is a significant transformation that will improve the quality of life for legions of people on just about every continent.”
Socrata is the chief architect and convener of the Open Data Network. The Open Data Network brings together a vast and connected ecosystem of participants – governments that are open data publishers and consumers; businesses that incorporate and use government data; citizens; and civic developers and entrepreneurs who use open data to build service delivery apps. The objective of the Open Data Network is to make open data sharable, comparable, inter-operable and benchmarkable across governments. The Socrata Apps Marketplace, and the apps partners that participate in it, is a key enabler to achieving that objective.
Partner Participation in the Open Data Network and Apps Marketplace
Socrata is the chief architect and convener of the Open Data Network. The Open Data Network brings together a vast and connected ecosystem of participants – governments that are open data publishers and consumers; businesses that incorporate and use government data; citizens; and civic developers and entrepreneurs who use open data to build service delivery apps. The objective of the Open Data Network is to make open data sharable, comparable, inter-operable and benchmarkable across governments. The Socrata Apps Marketplace along with the apps partners that participate in it, are key enablers to achieving that objective.
The Socrata Apps Marketplace is launching with six flagship partners, including: World Bank Finance, SeeClickFix, Civic Insight, ReCollect, DRiVEdecisions and Social Health Insights. As members of the Open Data Network, each partner brings more value to the network by offering Socrata’s public sector customers turnkey apps that can be initiated from the marketplace.
“Joining the Socrata Open Data Network and Apps Marketplace is a major move on our part. It shows how much we believe that Open Data is more than “publication” and “transparency" but a major, transformative asset, when applications are built on it” says Francesco Ciriaci, Program Officer of World Bank Finance. “The Socrata Apps Marketplace, and the Open Data Network, are major developments, and, in our view, will almost certainly lead to sweeping changes in the global public sector over the next few years.”
Adds Ryan Mannion, Government Partnership Manager of SeeClickFix: “Socrata's Apps Marketplace is a powerful tool that will expand and deepen the open data movement around the world. This is where governments, civic app developers, companies, communities and citizens are going to go, so we want to be there, too.”
Customer Connections
Socrata Service Connect has been deployed by the City of San Francisco, and a number of other Socrata customers are expected to extend the new app to their constituents as part of their Open Data initiatives in the coming weeks.
“We’re very happy with Service Connect and its new use of Open Data,” explains Nancy Alfaro, Director of San Francisco’s 311 Customer Service Center. “The dashboard is easy to use, intuitive, and provides people with visual snapshots of what is going on by category, or in their neighborhood. The display works across all browsers, including mobile.”
Deeper Insights and Richer Information
To provide more information and help people learn about its new pair of product innovations, Socrata is offering two informational webinars in the next few weeks:
- The first webinar, https://www..gotomeeting.com/register/144990311 [Getting Started with Civic Application Development], is designed for the developer community looking to build apps using Open Data that can be offered on the Socrata Apps Marketplace, and will be held on Tuesday, September 30th at 10 a.m. PT / 1 p.m. ET. Click here to sign up for this event.
- On October 2nd, at 11 a.m. PT / 2 p.m. ET, Socrata will conduct a webinar titled, The Intersection Between Open Data and Constituent Services, featuring the City of San Francisco and its use of Service Connect. Spencer Stern, one of the founders of the Chicago City Data Users Group (CCDUG), which seeks to promote civic engagement, innovation and economic opportunity by leveraging open data, will be the moderator. Click here to register for this event.
About Socrata
Socrata, the open data market leader, is the cloud software company focused exclusively on democratizing access to public sector data for the most innovative organizations around the world, including the cities of New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Melbourne and Eindhoven; the states of New York, Illinois and Texas; US Health and Human Services; Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services; the UN and the World Bank. Socrata’s solutions – including the recently launched Open Data Network™ which unleashes the full potential of government data to help drive connected communities around the world – assist government leaders in improving transparency, modernizing citizen access to information and bringing data into every decision, all with unprecedented speed and cost savings. Delivered as turnkey services, Socrata’s technologies unlock data trapped in enterprise silos, mobilize and transform it into useful information that everyone can easily access, visualize, share and reuse. To learn more about Socrata, visit http://www.socrata.com.
Contact
Bill Glenn
VP, Marketing
Socrata
[email protected]
(206) 465-3228
Steven Gottlieb, GreenC3, LLC, http://www.poweritsolutions.com, +1 (206) 427-9591, [email protected]
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