[OSM-talk] 3rd world croud-sourcing

[Michel Barakat]

> I'm particularly interested in the USSD functions, I've not really heard about them before, I may wander over to the OpenMoko mailing lists, and see if they know any thing about it :)
Afaik, USSD channels are controlled by the mobile operator. I believe
all devices support USSD but you'll need the operator's
approval/agreement to deploy any application over these channels.

> I would not preclude payed for work to be honest.
There's actually already been an ongoing attempt to citizen mapping,
paying citizens to add missing POIs on a map. See
http://www.gisdevelopment.net/news/viewn.asp?id=GIS:N_zqjpnrxcah

Full disclosure: I am exploring the gaming aspect of such an
application. In this case, the reward would not be a payment but
climbing up the high score board instead.
We might be able to get a lot of information out of ordinary users,
who are not necessarily GIS experts, through having them play a game
on their mobile phones. These include for example the location of new
POIs, filling in missing street names or simply verifying the
correctness of the current database content.