A friend of ours at Mixed Ink, David Sterne, Gave us the heads up that a reporter for the Oakland Tribune was trying to use a new platform called Spot.Us to pitch a story about the poor state of roads in Oakland, CA.
Spot.US is a site where the community raises monies to pay the journalist and the newspaper agrees to publish the article if the bounty is achieved .
Shortly after the money was raised in preparation for the story David Cohn and spot.us led the We Hella Hate Potholes ride.
They used a SeeClickFix map embedded in the Oakland Tribune to document the potholes.
Cohn, says of his conversation with an assistant suoervisor at Oakland DPW, " I guided him through both Web sites (seeclickfix and the oakland tribune) and he was completely taken aback, both in awe and simple surprise, that this information was out there. “Wow, we could really use this"
http://blog.spot.us/?s=pothole

Look out for the story by Sean Maher in the Oakland Tribune.