On Wed., San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom announced a unified open source platform linking its 311 system to social media networks such as Twitter and Facebook.
It’s called the Open311 API, and it’s a combined effort between San Francisco, Seattle, Los Angeles, Boston and other cities to work together to develop standards and protocols to link 311 systems with social networks, reported Government Technology’s Andy Opsahl.
In the past, linking 311 systems with social networking sites would take months to get all of the security regulations and standards to align with Twitter, Facebook and other social networks, according to Opsahl.
“We’ve done all of that work. We’ve come up with all of those rules and standards and we’re giving it away for free,” said San Francisco CIO Chris Vein. “If somebody in another city wants to use this, they can take it and their programmers don’t have to spend months going through the protocols and figuring out how to make it interoperable.”
The press conference announcing Open311 is available on YouTube.
