We've previously blogged about the idea of "sousveillance" - the idea citizens can keep an eye on those with greater power in society, using what are now everyday tools such as video cameras, mobile phones, blogs, and, well, sites like Patient Opinion.

But it's always been a little bit theoretical. Not such a big deal.

But now, here comes an example of sousveillance where it really matters - and all done with texting.

Let's hope it works.

A project called myPolice won Glasgow’s Social Innovation Camp last weekend (congratulations), and was soon being described as like “Patient Opinion for the police”. Becoming a cultural reference point for siCamp felt good!

But it wasn’t long before the good old British press brought everyone down to earth, with a fairly misleading piece in the Sunday Times titled “Warning over ‘shop a cop’ website”. You get the picture.

To their credit, the team behind myPolice have busily been blogging their own point of view, and others have stepped in with incisive commentary.

There’s always a certain fascination in watching how “old media” react to new media innovation. They seem to zig-zag between wide-eyed wonder and snide dismissal, depending on the time of day.

In this instance, the piece was predictable, if a little depressing. But coming from a health research background, what struck me was how negative the press can be about not-for-profit social innovation, while endlessly carrying uncritical and hyped-up reports of “medical breakthroughs” and new “wonder drugs”, with little solid evidence and clearly commercial motivations. Pharma innovation good, social innovation bad?

Somehow, the Sunday Times even managed to misrepresent us too, describing Patient Opinion as a site “which encourages online criticism of the NHS”. I mean, how hard is it to turn up at the site and see for yourself?

Nobody would deny that we've seen enormous improvements in healthcare in the last 25 years - and not just in medical and surgical interventions, but in the organisation of care. Look at those falling waiting times!

But once in a while (or maybe a bit more often than that) we get a posting on Patient Opinion that makes us blink and rub our eyes in astonishment. Like this one, which arrived last week:

Last week I had to wait for 2 hours to see my GP, 45 minutes of which I was standing in a queue. There was a heavily pregnant woman in front of me who was obviously finding standing for so long hard, so I had to tell her I'd queue for her and let her back in at the last minute.

Sorry? Did you say standing in a queue?

That can't be right. Maybe the relevant GP surgery could get in touch and tell us why we've misunderstood.

When a word moves from the realm of the geekerati into the mainstream media, it's often a sign that some kind of cultural shift is afoot.

And so it is this week, as Victor Keegan writes an interesting piece in Technology Guardian on "hyperlocal". And, satisfyingly, Patient Opinion gets a mention.

To be fair, although we do offer some kind of hyperlocal potential, I don't think we have yet delivered it sufficiently. Perhaps our new API and RSS feeds will help a bit (see blog post not quite yet written), although we'll need to find some lat/long data to make them properly useful.

But Keegan's piece prompted a different thought: so far, the emphasis of hyperlocal seems to be almost entirely on providing information, rather than supporting civic involvement or community action. Again not yet delivered, but very definitely on the Patient Opinion"to do" list, is something a bit more along these lines.

As always in times of crisis and upheaval, we must recall Marx: "Bloggers have only complained about the world, in various ways. The point is to change it."

I think this applies to hyperlocal too.

We're recruiting - again.

Recently we promoted Kate - the lynchpin of posting moderation - to head up our new pilot project on web feedback in social care (residential homes, to be precise). So now we have to replace her.

We're looking for someone enthusiastic, sociable, and not too scared of the web.

Here's the job description. Get in touch if you're interested.