Our stunning growth over the last year — we’re now showing 3 million Walk Scores per day on over 4,000 real estate partner web sites — has taught us to elevate our sights, and we’re thrilled to have a leader of Josh’s caliber on board to help us achieve our vision.

Read Josh’s bio here.

Thanks,
Mike

Estonia Cleanup – citizen self-organized 1-day cleanup of an entire country

Localocracy beta site launch – engagement in local elections and issues

Federal Ideascale Dashboard- aggregates, compares levels of public idea generation at different federal agencies.

ChatRoulette – randomized video chat connection between people across the world. Mindchanging. Contemplating potential impact on civic engagement. [WARNING: not always work or kid safe - in the same way that many AOL chats 12 years ago weren't all work or kid safe.]

1. Nominations Open for Social Innovation Fellows @poptech
2. Green Homes Flunk Walk Score Test – USA Today and NRDC commentary
3. Free chapters from @oreillymedia’s “Open Government” book here! http://bit.ly/97Ciev
4. Open Source Digital Voting Foundation – transparent + publicly owned voting system code

Fun Facts from a remarkable year:

• 10 million visitors spent 46 million minutes on Walk Score in the last year.
• Daily traffic is up 291% since last January.
• 1.3 million visits last month.
• 46% of visitors are in the process of deciding where to live.
• 11,000 petition signatures to increase America’s Walk Score.
• 1,6oo signed petitions asking local transit agencies to open their GTFS data feed to sites like Walk Score.
• 3,400 real estate web sites now use Walk Score Real Estate services, up 484% in 1 year.

2009 Product highlights:

• Launched the Walk Score API – now serving 3 million scores/day to our real estate partners
• Shipped our first Walk Score iPhone app with the help of some great volunteers.
• Added public transit locations on Walk Score – our #1 customer request
• Upgraded the Walk Score Tile (Walk Score in a widget) to include Google Street View and transit maps
• Received a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation for transit and other improvements
• Compare Your Score – lets you see how you’re doing compared to others in your town
• Walk Score Home Value Study – Joe Cortwright, economist for CEOs for Cities quantifies the financial value of a high Walk Score

Thanks to all of our supporters for your help. We look forward to a more walkable 2010.

Rants

@RatedRHackstar wrote: Nj transit has to have to worse buses, timewise eva, them sits neva stick to schedule they come when they want

@merlynn wrote: the bus in front of me averaged a whopping 40 mph on the freeway. Way to go, Sound Transit.

@BlackMaria wrote: They’re checking fare on transit. Like half the people on the bus got fined and kicked off. Mean!!

@BookGeekGal wrote: Indianapolis: Why does your public transit website SUCK & repeatedly crash my internet? I’m trying to study feasibility of Indy trip. #sigh

@mermaidmask wrote: I f***ing hate public transit!

Tech Driving Accountability

@MicheleNW wrote: Lol bus went past me then stopped. I got on and he says “I know you would’ve emailed NJ transit…” I said “before you hit the corner!”

@coffee_makers wrote: TTC driver suspended following YouTube video of coffee break: A Toronto transit driver has been suspended pending … http://bit.ly/dChgsS

Agencies Opening Up for Feedback

@gctransit wrote: Welcome to the Gwinnett County Transit Facebook page. In our efforts to provide better service to our customers we… http://bit.ly/9KqOl0

@HillsboroughMPO wrote: How could improved mass transit in Tampa Bay affect you? Video contest going on now http://tinyurl.com/y9g4k7g

While we love up-and-right pointing graphs, more than 650 other transit agencies are lacking open data, and we hope to see that change in 2010.

City-Go-Round contains a list, (lovingly called The Wall of Shame here at the office), of the 10 largest transit agencies without open data.

Amazingly, just since our launch, 4 of the original Top 10 agencies have gone Open Data, and of the 4 new ones that took their place, half of those opened up too. This leaves us with a new top 10 as we head into February:

• Hire great people with professional experience. (We just started recruiting for a new Marketing Manager.)
• Always be testing. (We’ve integrated Google Analytics, but we’re not yet in an analytic-driven, continuous testing mind set.)
• Get signups first. You can get revenue later. (Sign up here!)
• Make sure that all of your emails have a consistent narrative arc.
• Email frequency can go up around specific, time-critical events, without losing your readers

I got more inspiration from the report than just these bullets, but you’ll have to wait to see how our sites change to find out!

It’s always nice to head into a new year with a clear plan. That start of year clarity — before reality impinges and forces change — is so refreshing. At Front Seat, one of our top goals in 2010 is to build our marketing and community outreach capabilities into a full-time effort. And so I’m happy to announce our first ever search for a world-class Marketing Manager. The full job description is here, but the essence of the job is a wide open mandate to use skills in online, offline, and social media to expand the distribution of our web sites and to promote our mission.

We hope that you’ll apply or mention it to your superstar marketing friends.

We think this is the first app actually using the new data (get it here or here), so please shout out if you see any problems.

With New York off the list, the new #1 transit agency with no open data is New Jersey Transit, followed by NE Illinois Regional Commuter Railroad, and Metro Atlanta RTA.

City-Go-Round lists 102 transit agencies with open data — a 50% increase since November, when Walk Score first added its public transit support with an open-only policy.

What do citizens get from this new data? Well, app searching on City-Go-Round is now fully functional for New York, and reveals 28 apps available to local riders. Check ‘em out!

A big congratulations to MTA and the NY Open Transit Data group, who have worked hard to overcome the political, legal, and technical hurdles to opening up this civic resource for New Yorkers.