[qi:100] For the longest time, I have had an unshaken belief in the Internet’s core truth: It is a vast repository of data that can be tapped to build interesting, and perhaps exciting, experiences. In other words, it is not just the data, but what you really do with it — something that was brought home this weekend with this TED talk by Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the man who invented the web. (See his presentation.)
In his presentation, he urged the attendees to think about information and how it could be linked to create a web of data. “Data is relationships,” he said. Relationships give meaning and context to that data. Data, which comes in different forms, is essentially the underpinning of the next web, he said.
There is a start-up coming in the business information category that you might like. Stay tuned.
Data is the king. Its only because of the data that portals like facebook have been able to make money.
this sounds a lot like the positioning of online collaboration solution provider HyperOffice’s data interlinking feature.
The hard part is making senses of data. Each prodcut/secvice generates data that represents it view of the world (in terms of transactions, inventory/asset, and users). Some have tried to come up with common taxonomies against which correlation rules/intleligence could be run. Unfrotunately, they are complex to use.
Yep, and he also said that people “hug their data” and he suggested that they should stop hugging and hoarding. That’s a very nice, idealistic thing for him to say. But what’s the incentive for organizations to suddenly turn charitable or philanthropic and to stop hugging their data? Unless it means saving the world (such as stopping something like swine flu) where everyone can see a no-brainer reason to collaborate and not hoard their data which benefits everyone from possible disaster, then I would suggest TBL is well intentioned but naive!
TBL says “you have no idea the number of excuses that people give to hold onto their data.” True, one of the excuses that people have is a lack of resources to publish and structure their data according to the latest W3C proposals.
The act of publishing — whether data or documents — is a time-consuming, laborious task, especially if one hopes to get it right. We need less wishful thinking with data sharing and more forceful funding of these projects.
He makes things so much clearer than any one else.