For some brief updates, check out the newest post on the CRIME De-Coder blog, PDs should share crime data. I discuss the types of crime data PDs typically share, the benefit to doing so, and how it can be very easy (just upload a static file to a website).

Also wanted to share a new tool I built, a GUI interface to download multiple Google Streetview images given a list of addresses. Here is a video of the tool in action:

I have been asked in the past to do this based on several blog posts I have written (1,2). I get around 200 views of those posts per month, so figured it was worth some time to build something general to share – it is often people in marketing interested in that data.

I am selling the tool for $300. Check out the CRIME De-Coder Store to purchase. It is currently built for Windows, I can build it for Mac if there is demand. (If you have a list and just want me to download the images for you, e.g. you don’t want to sign up for a google API key yourself, just get in touch and I will give a quote based on your total volume.)

If you are wondering where the $300 pricing came in, there is a simple rule that if you can estimate the maximum price someone is willing to buy, divide by half and that is reasonably close to optimal on typical sloping downward demand curves. I had an offer for $600 for this recently, hence I set the price of the tool for $300.

If there is other web-scraping data you are interested, always feel free to get in touch. I can often give quick feedback as to the feasibility and give a quote for the work (as well as detail if what you are asking is even feasible given the data available).