A New Way of Open Data
Everywhere we go, we want to know what's there. Open data are giving developers and data consumers new ways to describe and contextualize places. FCC.Gov/Developer and The National Broadband Map are both examples of the new open data approach. Which groups or industries are doing this well? What components really make open data great? How does open data from government improve services for citizens? Architecturally, when we open data as a means of consuming simple nuggets of data, and the ones that are relevant to the end user, where they are, when they are, we actually add to the information ecosystem, rather than clog it. The old way of open data was the data clearinghouse, metadata files and ftp/download locations. The new way of open data is data consuming only what I need; tell me what is right here, right now. The National broadband Map consumes lightly -- only what the user needs -- and is a reusable example of how to create new market opportunities from open data. The National Broadband Map was built on an entirely open source software stack and received 158,123,884 hits in its first 24 hours online!