Open Data

This evening I’ll be giving a demo of Lijit at the Boulder Tech meetup at the Wolf Law building, by Baseline and Broadway. Nothing too special, but I’d love a chance to meet any of my Boulder readers there.

And next week I’ll be attending the Open Data Conference in New York. I’m really looking forward to this. Of course it’s all the usual AttentionTrust goals, but I love this formulation of “open data”:


Open Data is to media what Open Source is to technology.

10 years ago I couldn’t see any business models around open source software. I thought I was being “realistic” in regarding it as a nerd’s fantasy. Many examples (MySQL, LiveJournal, Zimbra, Firefox, IBM, etc..) are proving the old me wrong.

But today we all see that selling software (Microsoft style) is not what it used to be. Google has changed the rules by shifting the game to data. (as I’ve blogged about before.) What will be the business models around Open Data?

If you’re attending the conference, I look forward to discussing this question and more. (And if you’re just in the NYC area and want to grab a cup of coffee next weekend, drop me a line.)