THE DEPUTY Leader of the Council, Peter Brooks, has praised the council’s iPhone app designed to promote Greenwich.
Speaking at last week’s full council meeting, Cllr Brooks said the application, which cost over £5,000 to develop, was “worth every penny”.
Holding his iPhone in his hand, the councillor said he had downloaded the app a day earlier and that it was a “very good app”.
It was revealed in a written answer to Councillor Alex Wilson that the application was downloaded 185 times between 20 August 2010 and 18 November 2010. Since then, the developer has not been able to supply further information, the answer states, but downloads have been estimated at 15 per week.
However, in a previous answer given in response to a Freedom of Information request from 853’s Darryl Chamberlain in December 2010, it was stated that the app had been downloaded 563 times.
Destination Greenwich has been promoted in the council’s Greenwich Time newspaper, which is delivered to every home in the borough.
The application contains a countdown to the London 2012 Olympics and a list of “treasures” in the borough.
£2,550 of the development cost was spent on the script, studio time and narration of the application’s list of local treasures. The application contains 35 minutes of narration.
Destination Greenwich’s list of Greenwich Treasures
- The O2
- Royal Observatory
- Greenwich Park
- Old Royal Naval College
- Queen’s House
- National Maritime Museum
- St Alfege Church
- Greenwich Market
- Discover Greenwich Visitor Centre
- Cutty Sark
- Royal Artillery Barracks
Which “treasures” do you think the council should add to its list?
£5000?! Is it anything more than a map?
How about Charlton Athletic Football Club, the Thames Barrier, Blackheath Rugby club, Charlton House and Maryon Wilson Animal Park for starters.
The list they offer is an embarrassing respresentation of the beauty that Greenwich has!
Can you add us to the app?
Greenwich & Lewisham Young People’s Theatre x
To be fair, it also has a countdown to the Olympics (178 days and 12 hours at time or writing) and an RSS feed of events from the council website.
No Fan Museum, no Viewfinder gallery, no Ranger’s House. Olivers warrants a mention too. And Joy, one of the prettiest buildings in the town.
It’s a pretty pathetic list.
Oooh only 178 days? That’s quite exciting.
Still, my iPhone already has an RSS reader. That’s not enough of a feature.
Second Floor Studios and Arts, off Warspite Road – one of the largest single site art communities in Europe!
And Charlton House, Thames Barrier, Fan Museum, Greenwich auction house, Blackheath Conservatoire and Halls, Rangers House, The Vanbrugh pub, East Greenwich Library (architecture)… so many others I’m sure. That list is really the bog-standard tourism list.
There’s naff all in Eltham on the map, despite the fact that Eltham Palace is pretty damn special. That’ll learn them all for voting Tory down there.
A year or so ago one of the Council’s Scrutiny Panels produced a report on Heritage Assets in the Borough – the list of sites runs to 17 pages and can be found at http://committees.greenwich.gov.uk/mgConvert2PDF.aspx?ID=2325&T=10
Personally – and speaking purely personally – I would add in lots of our many, many industrial sites of world importance – the site of Ferranti’s power station, most of the Arsenal, the Siemens site, and many many more.
and even more personally, if I can – of course – the gasholder.
– and to bring Greenwich’s role in technical innovation right up to date – lets add in Ravensbourne College.
I’d be asking why download stats are no longer available from the developer – this is pretty basic stuff.
As a price £5k seems about right,in my experience – not particularly cheap, but not ridiculous. Whether it’s a worthwhile endeavour is an entirely different question.
Haven’t Viewfinder b*ggered off to Brixton? There still seems to be occasional exhibitions in their old gallery, but not run by them.
Oh dear!
Its not the cost – £5k isn’t that much – but what a BORING app. A whole 11 venues, wow, and … narration! Woot woot! 🙁
But don’t worry, its got a countdown to the Olympics aswell – as if we needed reminding.
Little wonder the download stats were mediocre to begin with and are now completely absent.
Jog on Greenwich Council, another waste of my money.
🙂
This app has been kicking around for a year now so why has Cllr Brooks only just downloaded it? Convenient so he can claim to support it when challenged. The app is ok but it could be a lot better, it doesn’t really integrate with anything else and certainly not with the promotional material produced for the World Heritage Site. It just smacks of tokenism. Also is there a version for Android or Blackberry, seems a but pointless if they haven’t.
I thought the council used Blackberries so bit pointless if they cant get it on their own phone. Or have they switched to IPhones and nobody noticed like with the rest of the money that gets wasted.
Sorry but this app is pants, I downloaded it ages ago & deleted it very quickly, yet my life in Greenwich – oops sorry Royal Greenwich! is still trundling along just fine!