The business of Open Data
Much of the current enthusiasm for Open Data is in the public sector. It's about taking data we've paid for and making it available for scrutiny and use; local and national government spending, bus and train timetables, school performance data, and the like.
That's all great, but the promise has always been greater. It should be about enabling new business to grow, built on the back of freely accessible basic data. The European Commission, for example, estimates that €40bn in new business could be generated every year, powered by greater access to data from Member States.
There's also some interest in exploring ways in which companies themselves might open up at least some of the data they hold, increasing their own competitiveness and generating new opportunity for others.
In this context, the Open Data500 is interesting.
"The Open Data 500 is the first comprehensive study of U.S. companies that use open government data to generate new business and develop new products and services."
I also recently received a pre-publication copy of Joel Gurin's Open Data Now, and look forward to reading about other examples.
Work on Open Data in and around the public sector is great, but we need to keep up with efforts to push some of the potential and opportunity to a far broader constituency.
