RAW DATA NOW!

An ever interesting source of innovative talks, TED has a new Tim Berners-Lee video advocating a new evolution in the use of the Internet.



Tim Berners-Lee is calling for the availability of raw data on the Internet. He suggests that the first growth of the Internet was the ability to link document from anywhere to anywhere. What we now need to do is move beyond documents and make the raw data available. This has created his new idea of Linked Data.

What I find interesting about this is that he insists that it not just be the features/objects of the data which are available but the relationships around it. The way I think of this is that a WFS currently supplies a feature. it gives you the attributes and the geometry. It does not give you the relationship with other objects; the topology: this is what linked data is providing.

Where is this going? Well, where is it not! Let's explore one of his examples: Social networking. We have Facebook which is one giant E-R diagram of people. If we start to expose the relationships as data behind facebook and social networking sites then we have a seemingly never ending supply of data about people. Just imagine the value which could be derived form making that information available!

Now this is where he discusses the silos which are created around each of these social networking applications. Imagine if linked data took off and the ability to link all information offered through each social networking site became available.

We would end up with a mega organisation which hasn't been suggested since the days of googlezon!


Now onto GI. Tim actually brings openstreetmap into the fray at the end of his talk when he advocates the grass roots approach to making data available. By everyone doing their bit to produce a little bit, a lot is created.

Now finally I can say my thought:
We are experiencing an explosion in The GI industry which had been stimulated by the provision of data. What Tim Berners-Lee is advocating (and what we are seeing with openstreetmap) is a collaboration, customer led economy where we as a collective are calling for the new direction of information provision. Are we at this next stage of economics? Google shows no sign of slowing down their information provision. As long as they are chucking data at us we cannot catch up enough o start demanding any data let alone RAW DATA NOW!