I’ve got a post up over at TechPresident on Ushahidi. I’m basically responding to a new site called DeadUshahidi that points out a lot of Ushahidi maps never generate a lot of reports:

What has the people at DeadUshahidi concerned is that long tail of “dead” projects. I mean, look at all those unsuccessful maps! What a waste! In part I agree. There are lots of people running around believing that rolling out a map will solve a problem when, without at least plan, it probably won’t.

There is of course, another way to look at that power law distribution. One could also say it is a sign of enormous success. Perhaps Ushahidi has made the cost of deploying a mapping platform so low that it is worth the risk of losing what is now a negligible investment of time and money to spin one up. I mean, isn’t this the effective application of Eric Reis’ “lean startup” Silicon Valley methodologies?

You can read it all over here.

Oh, I’m also keynoting the International Open Government Data Conference at the World Bank in Washington on Wednesday morning – in case you are around.