Does open geodata matter?
There must be dozens of location based systems and apps in a similar vein to Word on the Street - yelp, qype, foursquare, and so on. However, as far as I know, there is only one where the data is unequivocally open and free. That's free as in speech, free as in creative commons, not just free as in beer.
What does that mean? Well, look at the terms of service for any other location based review system and you'll find a license that boils down to something like this:What's yours is ours and what's ours is our own
In some cases the service terms may deign to admit that you own your own work. In others they will go to the opposite extreme and ask you to waive even your moral rights to your own work! However, pretty much always, the collective work of all users is available to you only through them - they demand special rights to their users' work. This is the distinguishing feature of a closed service: the service owner has special rights to everyone's work that no other contributor has. In my opinion geo information is too important to be owned by just one corporation or individual. Why go to the trouble of going to places in your neighborhood and all over the world, and creating information primarily for the benefit of a service owner, when you can share it - and require it to be shared - with every other contributor instead? Whether you create data for OpenStreetMap, Word on the Street, Yelp, Qype, Foursquare or anyone else, take the time to make sure you know who owns it and how it may be used first. And if you don't understand the legalese there is one simple question you can ask your service provider, the answer to which will tell you if they are open or closed: ask them for a copy of the data. All of it, under the same terms as they are using the data you give to them.
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