At long last? Data.gov.uk
After years of people pleading with the government to release its data for the people of the UK to use, comes . Rory Cellan-Jones in his post Free at Last, has a review of the impact of the site and is left wondering what wonderful mashups we will get from the data. Surprisingly most people who have wrote about the site are optimistic that it will have a lot of impact on future data plans like releasing Ordinate-Survey mapping and geo data. But its not all cheers, some people are saying there isn't enough data by a long way.
Not a sheep,
The are really excited by the news that "Web founder Tim Berners-Lee unveils a UK government website that aims to make public sector data freely available. "While Andy G keeps it positive with ...
I have visited the a few times and the most common message that I see is "Your search returned no records". I get this if I look for individual data and even if I just click on ... Impressive? Not really, no.
Unlocking innovation | data.gov.uk on your marks, get set, mash up!Tim Trent seems to but wonders how many of the mashups will provide public use...
Seriously, how often do we need a dentist urgently when we also happen to have an iphone? And how facile is the idea of a gps location finder.
"Mavis, my tooth hurts."
"Quick, Arthur, turn on your iphone."
"I don't have the app!"
"Arthur, how many times have I told you not to leave home without the UK NHS Dentist database firmly in your pocket?"
This is a conceit, not a useful application.
I loved reading this ...
Wait a second where have we heard this before? Oh yes backstage.bbc.co.uk....I tuned into Radio 4's Today program - normally bastion of great Radio - and was very disappointed to hear an odd piece which implied civil servants were battling to avoid releasing the data, and that the ordinance survey data might not get published. While I am sure that there are some who are, it's the very opposite of what I have seen.
Why does data.gov.uk matter? It matters because:
- Open data encourages transparency in government. I see that as a very-good-thing.
- The datasets will stimulate innovation in services - from mapping accident black spots to finding cross-service opportunities.
- Data.gov.uk will be a nursery for a new generation of semantic-web software developers. If the community isn't where the next Google comes from (it might well be!), it will at least nurture a pool of developers who will bring great data processing and visualisation skills to business.
- Supporting a digital Britain. The initiative provides a first step in helping to UK catch up and over take countries like Australia and others who are a long way down the track. Knowledge-based services are a big part of the future.
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