Re: Business Models, Profitability, and Linked Data

On 6/7/13 4:15 PM, Melvin Carvalho wrote:
>
>
>
> On 7 June 2013 18:52, Kingsley Idehen <kidehen@openlinksw.com 
> <mailto:kidehen@openlinksw.com>> wrote:
>
>     There have been a few recent threads on the LOD and Semantic
>     Web mailing lists that boil down to the fundamental issues of
>     profitability, business models, and Linked Data.
>
>     Situation Analysis
>     ==================
>
>     Business Model Issue
>     --------------------
>
>     The problem with "Data"-oriented business models is that you
>     ultimately have to deal with the issue of wholesale data copying
>     without attribution. That's the key issue; everything else is
>     a futile dance around this concern.
>
>     Profitability Issue
>     -------------------
>
>     Profit is the consequence of a functional business model.
>     Ultimately, an entity, whether a person or an organization,
>     has to orchestrate the intersection of pain, value opportunity,
>     capital, value creation, market demographics, packaging, and
>     value distribution.
>
>     Linked Data
>     -----------
>
>     As demonstrated by the Web -- on a daily basis -- our modern
>     economy is driven by Linked Data in digital form. Nothing has
>     really changed beyond the fact that value and its distribution
>     network are increasingly digital.
>
>
>     Problem Resolution
>     ==================
>
>     Relations & Relationship Granularity
>     ------------------------------------
>
>     Linked Data has always been the engine of the Web economy
>     because every link on the Web denotes (i.e., names or "refers
>     to") a Relation. We know everything is Related, but we don't
>     always know the specifics of a given relationship.
>
>     What's changing today is the fidelity (or granularity) of these
>     Relations. Thus, rather than having a Web-based economy comprised
>     of coarse-grained relationships between entities of a specific
>     type, the Web is evolving to incorporate new entity types in
>     conjunction with new relationship types. Basically, the Web is
>     becoming more fine-grained.
>
>     Note --
>
>     • a Relation is a set of Relationships
>
>     • Relationships may be represented in different ways, e.g.,
>     Table Records (typically presented as grids or spreadsheets),
>     or Entity Relationship Statements (often presented as graph
>     pictorials, like network or entity relationship model diagrams).
>
>     Relation and Relationship Semantics
>     -----------------------------------
>
>     The semantics of Relations, combined with Linked Data, are the key
>     to addressing the challenge of "data copying without attribution".
>     Their contribution is to add the following to the mix:
>
>     • verifiable identity
>     • access controls
>     • trust
>
>     Today, it is possible to produce and publish Linked Data (privately
>     or publicly) while also constraining access via the use of data
>     access policies. These policies may also be in Linked Data form,
>     and they determine what privileges are granted to specific
>     organizations, people, or machines.
>
>
> You cover public, but what about private, see below.
>
>
>     Technology
>     ----------
>
>     The technologies that make this possible, right now, are as follows:
>
>     • Linked Data HTTP URIs
>
>
> What about hashes as URIs?
>
> I can think of a few:
>
> di:
> ni:
> git:
> bitcoin:
> ripple:

Sure, it just means you need to implement resolvers for these URIs in 
the context of Linked Data.

Example:

1. 
di:sha1;oc2MevXd-mzX4o7et0FUTf38h5s?hashtag=webid&http=id.myopenlink.net 
-- as di: scheme URI
2. 
http://linkeddata.uriburner.com/about/html/di:sha1;oc2MevXd-mzX4o7et0FUTf38h5s?hashtag=webid&http=id.myopenlink.net 
-- resolver effect
3. 
http://linkeddata.uriburner.com/describe/?url=di%3Asha1%3Boc2MevXd-mzX4o7et0FUTf38h5s%3Fhashtag%3Dwebid%26http%3Did.myopenlink.net 
-- faceted browser page.

HTTP URIs (as you know) just eliminate the tedium of building a resolver 
for a scheme re., Linked Data.

>
>     • SPARQL endpoints
>     • entity relationship semantics based on the RDF model
>     • Authentication protocols such as WebID+TLS, OAuth, OpenID, and
>     others still taking shape (Web Keys, for example, which extends
>     basic HTTP Digest Authentication)
>
>
>     Conclusion
>     ==========
>
>     The Web is already driving our economy. It's how Google, Facebook,
>     Yahoo!, and the like pay their bills. All that's happening now,
>     in this industry inflection, is a move to a more distributed
>     framework where participation in the Web-based economy doesn't
>     require airport-sized data centers. You shouldn't have to be
>     burdened by the challenge of providing services to the the whole
>     world in exchange for $0.00 or nothing at all -- that's a game
>     for behemoths like Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc.
>
>
> PRISM is now a game changer imho

PRISM [1] certainly helped put matters into perspective for users of Web 
services.


>
>     Linked Data (what the Web has always been about!) is an economic
>     engine for value producers of all shapes, sizes, and forms.
>
>
> I think the next wave of LD based business can be self funded as 
> OpenCoin Inc. were with ripple.com <http://ripple.com> (to the tune of 
> 1 billion+)

I agree, that's what most don't see right now. The whole concept of 
capital is being changed. The color is no longer green, its shape and 
form is digital and webby, distribution is baked into the Web, and 
discovery is on an exponential SDQ (Serendipitous Discovery Quotient) 
[2] curve.

>
> They had a simple philosophy in conjunction with issuing there own 
> data driven coins (the coins are just shared links and relations)

The links actually denote the relations, that's the neat little AWWW 
design featur that Linked Data magnifies. RDF just puts icing on the 
cake by making granularity of Relations eternally extensible, via 
vocabularies and ontologies.
>
> 1. Create Liquidity
> 2. Create Utility
> 3. Create Trust
>
> Now a regular business does all of these.  But there's now new ways to 
> use data to optimize all 3 of these, and I think that's exciting.

Yes!

> For example, ripple allows you to set up accounts, trust lines, IOUs 
> and trade via their virtually issued data currency.  Each of these has 
> utility, the more you do it the more trust you get, and liquidity was 
> generated by bootstrapping existing data sets ... so that's smart.  Do 
> note that these operations are about having access controlled read / 
> write access to a data set...

Yep, which is why Identity and Trust have to be webby too. Same thing 
applies to PKI.


>
> I hope we can find linked data business models that can also do the same!

It's all baked into the platform we know as the World Wide Web. We just 
need to get folks to understand that the Web is a global platform for 
putting puzzle pieces together etc. Getting that to resonate is 
challenging as it requires lots of patience and persistence etc..

Links:


1. 
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-57588253-83/what-is-the-nsas-prism-program-faq/ 
-- PRISM FAQ
2. http://bit.ly/TWw4Ck -- SDQ.
>
>
>     Related:
>
>     1. http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=function -- Function
>     (remember, when not void, they return 0 or 1 i.e., True or False)
>     2. http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=relation -- Relation (a
>     Relation is really a Function)
>     3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identifier -- you have literals or
>     references (e.g., HTTP URIs)
>     4. http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5988#section-3 -- Links (which
>     denote Relations)
>     5.
>     http://www.w3.org/DesignIssues/diagrams/history/proposal-fig1.gif
>     -- original Web design illustration (note: the "describes"
>     link/relation/connector)
>     6. http://bit.ly/1bdlBYq -- Data & Relations thread on Ontolog list .
>
>
>


-- 

Regards,

Kingsley Idehen	
Founder & CEO
OpenLink Software
Company Web: http://www.openlinksw.com
Personal Weblog: http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/~kidehen
Twitter/Identi.ca handle: @kidehen
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