CitySourced screenshot (Credit: Josh Lowensohn/CNET)

QUICK POST

Journalists Tweeting at TechCrunch 50 are excited about the prospects of CitySourced, a digital startup focused on mobile civic engagement tools.

Here is how the people at CitySourced describe their mobile apps:

1) a free, simple, and intuitive tool empowering citizens to identify civil issues (potholes, graffiti, trash, snow removal, etc.) and report them to city hall for quick resolution; 2) an opportunity for government to use technology to save money and improve accountability to those they govern; and 3) a positive, collaborative platform for real action. Our platform is called CitySourced, as it empowers everyday citizens to use their smart phones to make their cities a better place.

I think they are thinking about how people could use an application like that to send to certain news desks. I don’t think that idea is really revolutionary. Many papers have some kind of system like that or similar to that. NYTimes could come out with an iPhone application like that. It would probably be pretty easy.

I’m more excited for how it will help cities like Philadelphia deal with issues, however, do the people who would most likely to need it (people who live in regions where there is a lot of graffiti and potholes) have nice enough cell phones to make use of the applications or is this just a generalization?

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