As well as offering numerous options for brands and consumer entertainment, convergence is also helping local communities.

The unlikely London borough of Lewisham attracted a lot of attention last summer by introducing a service where consumers could take pictures of local nuisances (left rubbish, graffiti, broken windows etc) on their mobile phones and then upload them onto the Lewisham Borough website. The council would then post under the image details of when and how the problem would be fixed, keeping the consumer up to date:

http://www.lovelewisham.org/Public/Images.aspx

This sort of interaction is now quickly materialising all over the world. The local government of Amsterdam's Geuzenveld district just launched an online tool that lets people pinpoint neighbourhood problems on Google Maps. After filling out an online form, a marker is placed on a Google map of the area along with information on how the complaint is being dealt with:

http://mor.amsterdam.asp4all.nl/MORGeuzenveld.aspx

The district is counting on the service to save time and money - a street lantern that's out of order will lead to numerous calls and emails to the district. Once people get used to checking the map to see if someone else has already reported an issue, the amount of complaints that simple waste council time will decrease. Also residents will potentially feel more involved now that they are able to track how their complaint is being followed up, and that local maintenance crews will be motivated to keep the map as empty as possible, solving most issues within 2 days.
New York will also be up-ing it's game later this year with a new addition to it's 911 service. The city's police call centres will be able to receive camera-phone pictures and videos taken by residents and visitors, straight from the scene of a crime:

http://www.nyc.gov/portal/site/nycgov/