Last week I had come across a site called spotcrime.com. This site is another example that how important an “About Us” page can be. As this site was missing it I had to mail them few of my queries from their contact page. And I have received their reply for the same.
Q) What is the main objective of the website?
Ans. We just want to map any available crime data and provide it the
community in hopes that it will improve safety in our neighborhoods by
increasing awareness.
Q) Who is the owner of the site and what made him open the site?
Ans. The owner, Colin Drane, lives in Baltimore. Baltimore has a very high
crime rate, therefore, he wanted a visual representation of where
crime was happening. Once Baltimore was done, we decided to expand to
the rest of the US.
Q) How will the users benefit from it?
Ans. There are multitudes of ways. Visually, you can immediately tell
high crime areas. Secondly, we provide a historical detailed crime
incident record. Again, we hope it increases awareness and increases
safety. And there is potential for the site to help direct public
resources to prevent crime.
Q) Do you have any association with any Police Department?
Ans. No. In some cases we do pull data directly from the Police Departments.
Q) What are the various technologies you are using?
Ans. We keep most of this confidential because it is proprietary. That
said, this project could not have been done without the help of Google
having an open mapping API.
Q) Is there any mobile version of website available?
Ans. We have an iPhone optimized page, and provide SMS alerts to anyone who
signs up for them. US only right now.
They have not reveled about their income source. But they are using Google Adsense. The website may not be much benefited with it. But I expect very soon some sort of affiliate marketing policy or tie-up to meet their monetary needs. As it is just a beginning I expect more features to be added later on.
If this site works out I can expect similar steps being taken in various parts of the world too.
