Better Post is a web service for people in the UK to find out if postal mail for them is still getting sent to the places they used to live, and for the people now living there to find out who to forward it to. I propose a highly usable, free website which does the following: 1. Matches past and current residents of any address in the UK property; then, 2. Connects them together, safely, so they can sort out the post. A current resident could input the addressee’s surname and initial, and connect it with the house number, street and postcode, and then associate their email with that specific entry. Someone wanting to know if there was mail at an address would search Better Post using the same five variables. Where there was a match, Better Post would inform both parties, and provide a hosted method for them to communicate, exchange emails or other social networking identities.
Set up a website to provide consumer info on mobile and fixed line phones, to enable consumers to shop around for the best service. Information would include mobile phone coverage in your area, price of service plans and 'add ons' to service plans. More demand for info on mobile phones, as more people use them. Phone deals becomming more complicated as operators bundle services together, consumers need clear info to choose between competing businesses.
Company directors exert a great deal of power over the operations of the companies they run. Despite the information being in the public domain on the Companies House website, it isn't immediately clear which directors sit on the boards of which firms. In the US, the website http://www.theyrule.net/2004/tr2.php provides this info. Could something similar be done in the UK?
Provide an online resource for consumers to submit the names and locations of shops/businesses which are wasting energy by heating their premises during warm weather. The worst offenders could then be identified and encouraged to change their unsustainable behaviour.
Create and maintain a database of the ingredients of all products available for purchase in the UK. Separate databases could be established for different types of products such as food, health foods, processed foods etc. or databases for all products that contain such and such an ingredient.
MySociety have created a service called WhatDoTheyKnow, which not only makes it easier for individuals to make Freedom of Information requests to the different public bodies, but also allows others see what requests have been made and what the answers have been (therefore reducing duplicate requests, measures response time and more). Create something similar for companies, so if I wanted to complain about a service/product, I'd do it through this site and then other can see that I've sent correspondence to a company and can also view the content of what I've written. If the company gives consent, their reply can also be viewed.
There are loads of cycle lanes around our towns and cities, but often they just disappear - merge into bus lanes or get parked on. We could collect data on cycle lanes - identifying where they are and highlighting ineffective cycle lanes and map them out on an interactive website. The public should be able to feed in their experience of cycle lanes e.g. if road works are blocking the lane on a certain date
Include linked data support in all your projects - either exposing RDF directly (perhaps as RDFa) or via a SPARQL endpoint. See http://esw.w3.org/topic/SweoIG/TaskForces/CommunityProjects/LinkingOpenData/
Create a tool that allows people to log reports of police brutality and unjustified stop and searches - with the number of the relevant officer. Maybe people could also upload digital footage they might have made. There could be a extra area where people can upload pics of officers that have forgotten to display their number while on public duty. The tool could also list instances of "death in custody" and identify police stations where this happens frequently.
Location based search engine for TrustMark registered firms with a customer feedback facility.