VerySpatial draws attention to something that would make any yuppie-nerd iPhoner with an interest in open source and public participation GIS get hot under the sweater vest: OSMTrack, the iPhone app for OSM contribution.
…Which I may need to look up in the beginning of 2009, as I just heard from an intern who wants to sign onto my mobile community inventory project (and — get this — to volunteer in advance of next semester).
Adrian Holovaty’s pioneering Google Maps mashup ChicagoCrime.org is over. Holovaty announced it on January 31, 2008, ending the run of a great public service mashup. I included ChicagoCrime.org in an article I wrote about Google Maps becoming one of the few real-world instances of the oft-theorized Public Participation GIS (ppGIS). Though Holovaty’s site wasn’t participatory in and of itself, it was cited as an early example of how the increasingly participatory nature of information was being taken advantage of.