NYC Joins Facebook, Foursquare; Bloomberg Plans 'Hackathon' To Redesign City Web Site
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork/AP) -- The Big Apple is going digital.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg unveiled a plan Monday to make New York "the premier digital city."
The initiative includes a redesign of the city's website with the ultimate goal of enhancing social media to make it easier and faster for New Yorkers to engage with the city government.
WCBS 880's Rich Lamb reports: Bloomberg Unveils Road Map To A Digital City
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"Digital media has an enormous potential to enrich our economy and strengthen our civil life and this road map will show us the way," Bloomberg said.
The city will hold a weekend-long "hackathon'' in which developers and designers will be invited to create prototypes for the nyc.gov web site.
Digital partnerships are also being forged with companies including Facebook, Tumblr and Foursquare in an effort to update and streamline New York City's social-media presence.
The city will work with Foursquare to allow visitors and residents to digitally check in when they arrive at public spaces. People will be rewarded with a virtual badge when they check in at enough parks and cultural centers.
"Foursquare grew out of the New York tech scene, and we are super excited to continue to contribute to the growth of that community and to New York's emergence as the nation's leading digital city," said Foursquare CEO and Co-Founder Dennis Crowley.
A streamlined Facebook page will eventually offer resident polls and be linked to 311.
A Twitter account under the name @nycgov will also provide residents with a one-stop shop for real-time updates on city news and services.
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