Who knew that geographical information could be so interesting?

There has been a lot of interest in a new mashup website called walkscore. (in fact there is sooo much interest that the site is currently down because it has overused its Google map allocation. Anyway, the site has a very simple idea, by combining google's mapping and location data with your home address, it is able to calculate a score of 'walk-ability'. This statistic gives an indication of how friendly your neighbourhood is to walkers.

Although most of the coverage has been positive, there have been some criticisms of its accuracy, see here

I feel there should be a real opportunity for any organisation which has staff on the ground, such as the postal services, to build upon this idea. Postal staff walk or drive distinct areas every day, so gathering additional detailed information about e.g., the condition of pavements, could be relatively simple. The information could then create a whole new layer of services.