An Emerging Open Data Economy? Coming Full Circle in a Decade

Reading the blog posts and Twitter streams on Transparency Camp over the weekend, got me thinking about how the open data landscape has changed over the last decade plus. When I first started doing GIS work it was the mid-nineties and the Internet was a new thing. Everyone was racing to get their data online and ready to share. We started collecting all the geospatial data we could get our hands on, especially around infrastructure.

Then 9/11 happened and the world changed. Open data went off line. The majority of infrastructure data we’d gathered was pulled. The data we’d collected was considered a security threat. Now we’ve come full circle and data is opening up again. Having spent the last eight years arguing that open data is not a security threat, but a societal benefit, it is absolutely awesome to see a changing of the tide.

Even more encouraging is the new perspective of pushing for data in common formats so it can be remixed and innovated on top of. The possibilities are potentially endless. I think we’ll see a small economy develop on top of the data released in this latest push. Although it won’t be the economy of Web 1.0 where developers made money building portals for folks with information. Instead it will be developers building useful applications harnessing the data in innovative ways. With the number and quality of people that showed up at Transparency, some of the most innovative tech minds are thinking, and that is bound to lead to innovation. We’ve already seen it beginning in DC. Data sets coming on line from government agencies and companies forming to provide services around them.

Often times there is a contract up for bid to provide technology for the government around the data, but when the data is public domain many we’ve come across are also planning on providing value added commercial services with the data. The majority of efforts are not just presenting data and allowing commenting, but leveraging the data to answer questions for users. I think that is where the most fascinating innovation will occur. With all the data that could be coming online just providing access will be insufficient. Clever applications will need to answer meaningful questions for users with the data. There is the potential for a jumping off point towards a structured data driven Web.