New York State has been experimenting with Gov 2.0 initiatives for several years. In fact, our editor knocked out a few apps once-upon-a-time using Open Senate API’s. While NYC OpenData has been rightfully getting press attention, with last week’s announcement from Governor Cuomo’s office, researchers, hackers, and entrepreneurs may start shifting their focus to New York State’s new open.ny.gov.
I took a brief tour through the site, and it looks likes they’ve taken their cues from NYC. Both OpenData and open.ny.gov are built on the same underlying Socrata platform. Anyway, the larger point is that with Socrata, open.ny.gov is an environment. You work directly with the tabular data sets using filter and view functions to select what you’re interested in. The data can be rendered into interactive charts courtesy of the visualize function. And yes, the charts can be embedded. The one below– created in under five minutes–shows traffic patterns across some of the state’s beloved cross-Hudson bridges.
Open.ny.gov is a collaborative environment so charts and views can be shared with others–a powerful feature. This is a great start, and we look forward to exploring data sets such as the New York’s most popular baby names, recommended fishing rivers and streams, and of course, it wouldn’t be a Gov 2.0 resource without restaurant inspection results, found here.