It's striking how quickly technology has changed and sped up this past 10 years. From blogs and smart phones to Twitter and social networking, the Internet and access to data is making communication easier, faster, and more efficient.

NYC is at the leading edge of this front because it's actively promoting free access to data sharing. In October, the City launched the NYC BigApps Competition specifically for that purpose, to attract useful applications built from data that the City provides for free. In their words:

"The City of New York is improving the way it provides information and transparency to citizens. But delivering great information requires great tools. The NYC BigApps Competition will reward the developers of the most useful, inventive, appealing, effective, and commercially viable applications for delivering information from the City of New York's NYC.gov Data Mine to interested users."

From today through January 7th, you can raise your mice to vote for the applications you like best. There are lots of handy apps, many of which I plan to use on a regular basis, such as NYC Landmarks, for all those times when you see a horrible rehab job and wish you knew if the building were in a historic district, or Hey Walkies, which shows all the dog park locations (each marked with a cute pink paw). Oh, and if you like what we're doing here, you can vote for Ride the City, too. We're grateful to the City for making its LION street centerline files available to the public. Without that, Ride the City likely wouldn't be here.

To participate, simply go to the NYC BigApps website, sign in, and then you're eligible to vote.