Every time SeeClickFix helps get a pothole fixed, it proves that democracy can work on Main Street as well as K Street, and a lot less expensively. Municipalities spend about $10 handling a 311 call about a pothole. SeeClickFix can cut that cost to close to zero by delivering to City Hall, via jaw-rattled citizens, GPS-pinpointed information about new potholes plus digital photos of the road damage. Municipal staff can then mobilize resources to fill each pothole rather than spending 15 minutes trying to calm an upset motorist or cyclist. What’s in store for SeeClickFix in 2013? We caught up with cofounder Ben Berkowitz over email recently to find out.

SeeClickFix will be entering its sixth year in March. Has time tempered your excitement about your mission and potential since your launch in 2008?

 
Not all. Should I be concerned? Does this make me a fanatic? In all seriousness, our users keep surprising us with use cases, the site continues to double content creation year over year, and the number of governments paying us to help them save money and increase engagement in their communities is tripling every year. The party is just getting started.

Would you update the numbers? How many cities and towns do you have relationships with? What’s your annual fix rate? How many issues have been resolved? How many news partners?

There are 135 client cities and tens of thousands receiving alerts. Sixty-six percent of issues reported in the last year were fixed. That trend continues upwards. We have around 1,000 news partners. We have really started to focus in on the government partnerships more than anything as that’s where we see the most growth and the company is really performing well in that sector.

Do you plan to launch any specific major innovation in 2013?

In 2013 we will launch our social question-and-answer knowledge base, we will have our first clients adding other open data feeds to their mobile apps, we will have users crowd funding repairs and will generally will continue to step up the user experience. Sales, marketing and engineering will all grow dramatically at SeeClickFix in 2013. Our biggest focus will be in harnessing the amazing community we have already built to bring in more folks and make neighborhoods even greater.

Read the entire piece by Streetfight.