Re: Linked Data Business Models?

One of my favorite rants, of late ...

Microdata (atomic) and Metadata (molecular, ontologic) have rival (or nonrival) and excludeable (nonexcludable) properties.  The "Valley of Death" is one of four Linked Business Cases.  The interesting models are the mixed cases, for example, rival Federal Authority (e.g. UN,EU or IOC) with non-rival "National Teams" - Team GB is/isn't England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.  Only rivalry need be inherited, Non-rivalry is a null list.  Or, Silicon Valley is rival to all Federal, State, and Local Governments but Federal, State and Local Governments are not rival to each other.  OSS is ... well, you figuring it out, and modeling accordingly is the whole point.

An example[1]: Olympic Medals are nonrival (once won, c.f. nontransferable) and also nonrival are the existing locations of Fans (before and after the competition).  So Google or Facebook find Albanians in Anguilla ... What is that ? Answer: Not Linked Data, rival and excludable as that list is, it is "Junk Science".

--Gannon


[1] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-egov-ig/2012Jul/0032.html



________________________________
 From: Members Fusepool <members@fusepool.net>
To: Kingsley Idehen <kidehen@openlinksw.com> 
Cc: "public-lod@w3.org" <public-lod@w3.org>; Work Team Fusepool <team@fusepool.net> 
Sent: Sunday, July 29, 2012 8:37 AM
Subject: Re: Linked Data Business Models?
 

When reading through this list (not just this thread), where a naive observer would locate LOD's most vocal enthusiasts, I get the impression that LOD is in the midst of the Valley of Death. So before you sell your fortune, note that clever investors are just waiting for the Valley of Death to buy at lowest valuations...

More seriously: standardized, open, non-proprietary approaches for adding value to data will win because interoperable and interchangeable methods and parts significantly decrease the cost of production and the network effects of new adopters make these approaches increasingly more valuable to all. The question is not whether, but when (remember Keynes: in the long-term we're all dead).

As to the when, when is the right time, NEVER listen to the majority of existing customers when pursuing real innovations. In this (admittedly rare) case, existing customers are the millstone around your neck. They bother you with their reality, the status quo, and can get quite demanding. But the reality of today can never be the reality of the future, it never has been and it will never be that way.

As long-term observer of the Semantic Web world, I'm scratching my head because more than 10 years in the internet age ARE very long-term. So what's going on here? My impression is that the initial deep mismatch/mistrust of business and open advocates (remember when open-source was seen as something communist? ... remember Sun CEO O'Neilly?) has never been resolved really in the semweb world, which it definitely has in open-source software (oss).

So what went wrong? A single answer would not serve a complex problem but one reason why semweb  and oss developed differently regarding business impact may be that the former was too reliant on academic institutions and their funding, which made it possible to sustain a semweb world relatively independent from business requirements.

Anyway, what is needed now are real business or societal use cases that have a lasting impact, the ones that I read in the Sunday morning newspaper about as I do about oss.

So, let's drop the demo, and another demo, and yet another demo of cool or not-so-cool things and plan for real usage scenarios that offer a SOLUTION.

It's just a rainy Sunday afternoon...

Michael Kaschesky



On Thu, Jul 26, 2012 at 12:08 AM, Kingsley Idehen <kidehen@openlinksw.com> wrote:

All,
>
>There is a tendency assume an eternal lack of functional and scalable business models with regards to Linked Data. I think its time for an open discussion about this matter.
>
>It's no secret, I've never seen business models as challenging Linked Data. Quite the contrary. That said, instead of a dump from me about my viewpoints on Linked Data models, how about starting this discussion by identifying any non "Advertising based business model" that have actually worked on the Web to date.
>
>As far as I know, "Advertising" and "Surreptitious Personal Profile Data Wholesale" are the only models that have made a difference to the bottom lines of: Google, Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo! and other non eCommerce oriented behemoths.
>
>Based on the above, let's have a serious and frank discussion about business models with the understanding agreement that one size will never fit all, ever, so this rule cannot be overlooked re. Linked Data. Also remember, Business models aren't silver bullets, they are typically aligned with markets (qualified and quantified pain points) and the evolving nature of tangible and monetizable value.
>
>Hopefully, the floor is now open to everyone that has a vested interest in this very important matter :-)
>
>-- 
>
>Regards,
>
>Kingsley Idehen 
>Founder & CEO
>OpenLink Software
>Company Web: http://www.openlinksw.com
>Personal Weblog: http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/%7Ekidehen
>Twitter/Identi.ca handle: @kidehen
>Google+ Profile: https://plus.google.com/112399767740508618350/about
>LinkedIn Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/kidehen
>
>
>
>
>
>