Owtsee is a city guide for municipal services and public programming geared toward individuals who want to know more about what their city has to offer. It's available on the Web at www.owtsee.com and for Android devices on the Android Market. Our goal is not to tell you about Jack's Restaurant, Mary's Bar, Moe's Garage, or the latest daily deals; instead, it features ways to meet people, get active, or enrich yourself without needing to spend money eating or drinking. It was made by two developers looking to push the limits of what can be done with two months of their spare time after work (and most weekends).
Owtsee links up with various public datasets to provide information on parks, art installations, sites where movies were filmed, cultural institutions, and a whole lot more. Read more about any point of interest by clicking on its map marker. For some markers, it will help you find your way there by providing nearby subway stops, registered parking lots, and links to Google Maps pre-populated with the point as the destination. For parks in particular, it offers information about licensed vendors, plus any Meetups going on at that park (provided by the Meetup.com API).
Besides the usual means of filtering "By Borough" and "By Feature" (which we have too), the innovative "Doodle Your Area" feature allows you to filter map markers based on an area you draw. This is convenient if you are looking to search a small area, or if the area you are interested in crosses borough boundaries. Also, I haven't come across any other sites that let you do this.
Recently, Owtsee took 3rd place in the Grand Challenge of the Apps for Metro Chicago. Since then, we have done a complete overhaul of the user interface and mobile application, and built the New York version from scratch. Seattle is in development, and any other cities providing open data may soon be a target for Owtsee's sights.
Specifically for New York is the Opportunity page, available on the Web at http://www.owtsee.com/opportunity/nyc/ . Here we map various volunteer opportunities, public services, and after-school activities for you to participate in or volunteer at. Click on any of the map markers to find out more information about the opportunity. It even lists available jobs and internships, or perhaps create your own internship by reaching out to an organization!
There are still lots of features planned for Owtsee, including generating custom tours and interfacing with local service providers who align with our motive. Keep coming back to visit us and you may be surprised at what you find!
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