Crisis Mapping for the Masses

Crowdsourcing is a really useful methodology for lowering the barrier to participation in reporting on events in real time, even though it isn’t a silver bullet, as I’ve commented.

Unfortunately there’s always been a bit of an irony in the problem that while the barrier to participating in a crowdsourcing project using the highly successful and influential Ushahidi platform was low, the barrier to set up the IT server infrastructure to host it was high.

The clever folks there have taken care of this problem with the launch of Crowdmap, a hosted service that lets one serve up a deliciously fresh and tasty mapping platform with a few simple clicks of the mouse.

It is now harder to create a Facebook account than to get a crisis mapping system rolling.

This isn’t the end of the work required in getting a solid crowdsourcing project rolling; as Patrick Meier (personal friend as well as dev-tech innovator) has said, getting the instance set up is only the beginning of a successful crowdsourcing project. However, it’s a significant technical barrier – now interested crowdsourcerers don’t need to know UNIX from eunuchs to get rolling.

What I find most exciting about this is to learn where it will go. Ushahidi has so far largely been used by a few development insiders; what other folks will do with it may be revolutionary. It will certainly be unexpected.