Image via Wikipedia

The Open Knowledge Foundation (OKFN) promotes the creation, dissemination and use of ‘open knowledge.’ As part of this activity OKFN developed a data repository called CKAN, and has seen this become increasingly important to a range of data dissemination activities such as data.gov.uk and publicdata.eu.

In this podcast I talk with OKFN Director Rufus Pollock and CKAN Product Owner Irina Bolychevsky, to learn more about CKAN, its use in the context of open data, and the wider implications for dissemination of any data (whether open or closed).

Following up on a blog post that I wrote at the start of 2012, this is the tenth in an ongoing series of podcasts with key stakeholders in the emerging category of Data Markets.

Related articles

• Open Knowledge Releases Open Data Handbook 1.0 (readwriteweb.com)
• Data Market Chat: Leigh Dodds discusses Kasabi (cloudofdata.com)
• Data for the public good (radar.oreilly.com)
• Data Market Chat: Stephen O’Grady of RedMonk examines the bigger picture (cloudofdata.com)
• Data Market Chat: Nick Edouard discusses BuzzData (cloudofdata.com)

But as Kasabi CTO Leigh Dodds is keen to stress, you don’t need to be a Semantic Web developer or enthusiast to derive value from what Kasabi has to offer.

Like many others in the nascent data market space, Kasabi’s commercial models are still emerging, and Leigh shares some of the thinking that lies behind their current proposition.

There is some background noise on this recording, which will hopefully not affect your enjoyment of the conversation.

Kasabi is an initiative of Talis. I am a former employee of and current shareholder in Talis.

Following up on a blog post that I wrote at the start of 2012, this is the ninth in an ongoing series of podcasts with key stakeholders in the emerging category of Data Markets.

Related articles

• Data Market Chat: the podcasts are a-coming…(cloudofdata.com)
• Data Market Chat: Tyler Bell discusses Factual (cloudofdata.com)
• Data Market Chat: Hjálmar Gíslason discusses DataMarket.com (cloudofdata.com)
• Data Market Chat: Chris Hathaway discusses AggData (cloudofdata.com)
• Data Market Chat: Flip Kromer discusses Infochimps (cloudofdata.com)
• Data Market Chat: Nick Edouard discusses BuzzData (cloudofdata.com)
• Data Market Chat: Stephen O’Grady of RedMonk examines the bigger picture (cloudofdata.com)
• Data Market Chat: Shion Deysarkar discusses Datafiniti (cloudofdata.com)
• Data Market Chat: Piyush Lumba discusses Microsoft’s Windows Azure Marketplace (cloudofdata.com)

Piyush Lumba, Director of Product Management for Azure Data Services at Microsoft, talks about what the Marketplace can do today and shares some of his perspectives on ways that the nascent data market space could evolve.

Following up on a blog post that I wrote at the start of 2012, this is the eighth in an ongoing series of podcasts with key stakeholders in the emerging category of Data Markets.

Related articles

• Data Market Chat: the podcasts are a-coming…(cloudofdata.com)
• Data Market Chat: Tyler Bell discusses Factual (cloudofdata.com)
• Data Market Chat: Hjálmar Gíslason discusses DataMarket.com (cloudofdata.com)
• Data Market Chat: Chris Hathaway discusses AggData (cloudofdata.com)
• Data Market Chat: Flip Kromer discusses Infochimps (cloudofdata.com)
• Data Market Chat: Nick Edouard discusses BuzzData (cloudofdata.com)
• Data Market Chat: Stephen O’Grady of RedMonk examines the bigger picture (cloudofdata.com)
• Data Market Chat: Shion Deysarkar discusses Datafiniti (cloudofdata.com)
• Big data in the cloud (radar.oreilly.com)
• ‘Roswell’: Another key component of Microsoft’s cloud strategy (zdnet.com)

CEO Shion Deysarkar talks about the development of the web crawling capability within his other company, 80legs, and then goes on to explore the ways in which this impressive capability is being put to work in locating authoritative and comprehensive data for which customers are prepared to pay.

Corroborating different sets of data from across the web, Deysarkar argues, results in a resource more accurate, more timely, and more complete than is available elsewhere.

Datafiniti is currently in beta, and initially focussed upon providing data to address the needs of specific industry verticals.

Following up on a blog post that I wrote at the start of 2012, this is the seventh in an ongoing series of podcasts with key stakeholders in the emerging category of Data Markets.

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• One API for the Web, Oh the Possibilities (programmableweb.com)
• Datafiniti: Is a Successful Data Search Engine Possible? (arnoldit.com)
• Data Market Chat: the podcasts are a-coming…(cloudofdata.com)
• Data Market Chat: Tyler Bell discusses Factual (cloudofdata.com)
• Data Market Chat: Hjálmar Gíslason discusses DataMarket.com (cloudofdata.com)
• Data Market Chat: Chris Hathaway discusses AggData (cloudofdata.com)
• Data Market Chat: Flip Kromer discusses Infochimps (cloudofdata.com)
• Data Market Chat: Nick Edouard discusses BuzzData (cloudofdata.com)
• Data Market Chat: Stephen O’Grady of RedMonk examines the bigger picture (cloudofdata.com)

Image via CrunchBase

RedMonk don’t offer a data marketplace and, so far as I know, they have no intention of doing so. Nevertheless, this series of data market podcasts would not have been complete without an opportunity to hear what RedMonk co-founder Stephen O’Grady had to say. A blog post of his, from late last year, was the thing that finally persuaded me to stop thinking about a series on data markets and actually get on and do it.

So blame Stephen. Or thank him. Depending upon how you feel about this series so far.

Drawing upon some thinking about markets, and a lot of experience from the development of sustainable models for open source, Stephen packs a lot into this half hour conversation. If you’ve been wondering about the space, or trying to understand whether or not its viable, this should be compulsory listening.

Following up on a blog post that I wrote at the start of 2012, this is the sixth in an ongoing series of podcasts with key stakeholders in the emerging category of Data Markets.

Related articles

• Nurturing the market for Data Markets (cloudofdata.com)
• Data Market Chat: Tyler Bell discusses Factual (cloudofdata.com)
• Data Market Chat: Chris Hathaway discusses AggData (cloudofdata.com)
• Data Market Chat: Hjálmar Gíslason discusses DataMarket.com (cloudofdata.com)
• Data Market Chat: Flip Kromer discusses Infochimps (cloudofdata.com)
• Data Market Chat: Nick Edouard discusses BuzzData (cloudofdata.com)

Image via CrunchBase

The more I learn about BuzzData, the less sure I am that it belongs in the Data Market club. That doesn’t mean that the site isn’t useful, or valuable, or relevant to lots of different people. Far from it. But it seems clear that BuzzData’s current focus is upon doing something very different to the other companies I’ve spoken to during this series.

Described by Nick Edouard, BuzzData’s EVP Business Development & Marketing, as a “GitHub for data,” BuzzData concerns itself with providing a place in which groups can collaborate around a set of data. This data might be a public resource that they’ve found for free on BuzzData itself, or it might be a corporate database or spreadsheet that has been uploaded to a private area of BuzzData to be worked on collaboratively. More like Huddle or Box than Infochimps or Factual, BuzzData seems primarily interested in delivering a data-centric perspective on the increasingly important task of collaboration. Whether the company can make that particular niche big enough for themselves and (if successful) the inevitable flurry of copycat competitors remains to be seen, but they’re off to a good start.

Following up on a blog post that I wrote at the start of 2012, this is the fifth in an ongoing series of podcasts with key stakeholders in the emerging category of Data Markets.

Like most of my podcasts, this one is audio-only. I am conducting a short survey this week (only one question is mandatory) to gauge interest in alternative forms of podcast, and would be grateful if you could take a moment to record your view. I shall summarise the findings on Friday.

Related articles

• Data Market Chat: Tyler Bell discusses Factual (cloudofdata.com)
• Data Market Chat: Chris Hathaway discusses AggData (cloudofdata.com)
• Data Market Chat: Hjálmar Gíslason discusses DataMarket.com (cloudofdata.com)
• Data Market Chat: Flip Kromer discusses Infochimps (cloudofdata.com)

I originally recorded a podcast with Infochimps’ Flip Kromer way back in December 2009, when most of today’s data markets were just starting out. We spoke again last week, as part of my current series of Data Market Chats, and it’s interesting to begin exploring some of the ways in which Infochimps and its peers have evolved.

Describing Infochimps variously as a “SourceForge for data” or an “Amazon for data,” Flip argues that the site’s real value lies in bringing data from different sources together in one place. This, he suggests, is part of allowing customers to “bridge the gap from data to insight.”

Despite his impatience with some of the complexities of the Semantic Web ideal, Flip willingly embraces the lightweight semantics emanating from projects such as the search engine-backed schema.org. He also recognises the value of good metadata in making data easy to use, and in introducing a degree of comparability between data sets from different sources.

Towards the end of the conversation, Flip provides his perspective on some of the other players in this space. Microsoft’s Azure Data Market, for example, is Saks Fifth Avenue to Infochimps’ Amazon; one has ‘the best’ socks, whilst the other has all the socks.

Following up on a blog post that I wrote at the start of 2012, this is the fourth in a series of podcasts with key stakeholders in the emerging category of Data Markets.

Like most of my podcasts, this one is audio-only. I am conducting a short survey this week (only one question is mandatory) to gauge interest in alternative forms of podcast, and would be grateful if you could take a moment to record your view. I shall summarise the findings on Friday.

Related articles

• Data Market Chat: Tyler Bell discusses Factual (cloudofdata.com)
• Data Market Chat: Chris Hathaway discusses AggData (cloudofdata.com)
• Data Market Chat: Hjálmar Gíslason discusses DataMarket.com (cloudofdata.com)
• Data-as-a-Service startup Infochimps swaps out CEO (gigaom.com)
• Infochimps Acquires Y Combinator Startup Data Marketplace, Expanding Brand Holdings and Online Presence (prweb.com)
• What does a single day of Flickr uploads look like as real photos? (infochimps.com)

Richard Wallis

Our conversation is also an excuse for an experiment. I have been producing audio-only podcasts here and elsewhere for a number of years, but have always tended to avoid producing video. It’s more effort, it requires more bandwidth at both ends of the conversation, and I’ve never really been convinced that it adds very much to a conversation between two people. Anecdotal evidence would also suggest that my current podcasts are consumed in environments where video would not work; washing dishes, walking dogs, and sitting on buses.

However, rather than just continue to presume that my biases are correct, I’ve decided to give video a try. Richard kindly agreed to participate, and the result is available on YouTube and embedded here.

An audio-only version is also available for download if you prefer. The introductory remarks in this version are slightly different to those on the video, as they come straight from the original conversation.

It’s perhaps unfair to draw too many conclusions from this first attempt, but a few things are immediately apparent. The whole process takes an awful lot longer. The files are larger, so processing and uploading times increase 2-3 fold. Uploading a separate audio file also takes a bit of time. Simply dumping the Skype recording into iMovie worked just fine… but I’ve (so far) not managed to find any way to balance the audio levels. Garageband lets me do this with my audio-only podcasts, but iMovie doesn’t seem to, so Richard’s side of the conversation comes across as quite a bit louder than mine.

Having done one, I’m still not convinced that the video adds anything to the conversation. But what do you think? If you’ve listened to any of my podcasts, please take a moment to complete the short survey over at SurveyMonkey. Your responses will help me to decide where to go next.

Many thanks.

Image via CrunchBase

With Iceland’s DataMarket.com, Founder Hjálmar Gíslason is on his fourth startup, and ready to expand overseas. Focused upon becoming “Google for datanumbers,” DataMarket concerns itself with collecting and providing access to quantitative data; numbers from governments, international agencies, and commercial providers around the world.

Alongside the business of collecting data and making it available for download, DataMarket has invested in providing tools with which users can visualize data (typically in the form of a graph) and even compare results from diverse sources. Hjálmar sees these tools as part of a strategy to ensure that it is

“more desirable to use data on DataMarket than at the source.”

Hjálmar also discusses his view that four characteristics of data make it profitably sellable; proprietariness, timeliness, analysis, and curation.

Have a listen to learn more about DataMarket, and to hear Hjálmar’s thoughts on an industry segment that his company has done much to shape. And check back on Tuesday for the next podcast in the series; Ian Davis of Kasabi.

Following up on a blog post that I wrote at the start of 2012, this is the third in a series of podcasts with key stakeholders in the emerging category of Data Markets. Other conversations, all of which will be published here, have been scheduled with AggData, BuzzData, Factual, Infochimps, Kasabi, and Microsoft. I am still adding conversations to the series, and intend to talk with more companies and with analysts and investors with insight to share. 

Related articles

• Nurturing the market for Data Markets (cloudofdata.com)
• Data Market Chat: the podcasts are a-coming… (cloudofdata.com)
• Data Market Chat: Tyler Bell discusses Factual (cloudofdata.com)
• Data Market Chat: Chris Hathaway discusses AggData (cloudofdata.com)

Image via CrunchBase

Chris Hathaway sees basic location information scattered across the websites of hundreds — or thousands — of coffee shop chains, hotel groups, and fast food joints, but argues that it’s almost impossible to do anything more sophisticated with the data than find your closest Starbucks. His company, AggData, is attempting to fill what he sees as a gap in the market; scraping addresses and other facts off company websites to create simple files of store locations that can then be enriched with coordinate data and sold.

Customers for this data include competitors, market researchers, consultants, and even the companies themselves; as is so often the case, it can be easier to buy data on store locations from a third party than to find the authoritative sources within your own organisation. AggData is strongest in the US today, but also offers a growing body of data for other countries. Although the data files are structurally simple, Chris sees plenty of opportunity to continue collecting and selling data to a growing community of customers.

Unlike Factual, which was the focus of last week’s podcast, AggData is not currently interested in combining data from different sources. Customers download separate files on the locations of Starbucks, Peets and Tim Hortons, and not a single aggregated set of coffee shop locations. The AggData model is also predicated upon using their own scripts to extract data from third party sites; asked if he would accept a file of WalMart store locations supplied by WalMart, Hathaway explained why he would — and does — decline.

Have a listen to learn more about AggData, and to hear Chris’ perspectives on the potential role of semantic technologies in making his job easier. And check back on Thursday for the next podcast in the series; Hjálmar Gíslason of DataMarket.com.

Following up on a blog post that I wrote at the start of 2012, this is the second in a series of podcasts with key stakeholders in the emerging category of Data Markets. Other conversations, all of which will be published here, have been scheduled with BuzzData, DataMarket.com, Factual, Infochimps, Kasabi, and Microsoft. I am still adding conversations to the series, and intend to talk with more companies and with analysts and investors with insight to share. 

Related articles

• Nurturing the market for Data Markets (cloudofdata.com)
• Data Market Chat: the podcasts are a-coming… (cloudofdata.com)
• Data Market Chat: Tyler Bell discusses Factual (cloudofdata.com)