A quick story on Prangz.com. It’s another useful google maps traffic news mashup, not unlike Traffic Hawk or iTrafficApp, which was created in much the same way as these two Startup Camp alumni i.e. in a weekend of coding.

The difference in this case is that Prangz is the work of one coder - Matt Allen - but other than that it’s more or less the same.

So, if Prangz is nothing new or extraordinary why am I writing about it? Well it’s another example of how there are developers aching to come up with useful solutions based on public information that are being stifled by Government organisations that refuse to release the information in an easy to use format.

It still baffles me that people like Matt are forced to scrape data from the RTA site. Just like the iPhone App that was almost killed-off by State Rail until the NSW State Premier stepped in, the goal is better services for consumers at zero cost to Government. I’m sure there are reasons behind the refusal to provide useful information, it’s just I can’t really think of any that make sense.

How Sad.