I’m convinced that city building – like probably every other industry – is going to get a lot more data driven. Yesterday I wrote about how driverless cars are collecting exact replicas of our cities as a result of the 3D scanning that they do. And today I learned about an interesting new startup called Placemeter.
Basically it works like this: If you have a window (at home, at the office, or wherever) that faces onto a lively street, Placemeter will pay you to setup a smartphone in that window as a “meter.” The going rate is up to $50 per month and they’ll even provide you with the necessary suction cups.
Through video, your phone will then start collecting anonymous data about that street’s activity levels: the number of people, cars, and so on. Below is a video of what that output looks like. Notice that it’s even collecting the number of people that go into each of the stores. Click here if you can’t see the video below.