Re: Civic apps and Linked Data

Hello Alvaro,

I think a big reason is the lack of data. I believe that if governmental 
institutions in my country would publish their data as five star data 
there would be a boom in development of civic apps, and in the 
publication of other data sets as Linked Data too. As things stand now, 
the core of national or regional data that is published as Linked Data 
is so small that it can very easily be ignored. There is no critical mass.

Regards,
Frans

On 26-6-2013 16:03, Alvaro Graves wrote:
> Hello everyone,
>
> A few days ago I attended ABRELATAM'13 an unconference focused on Open 
> Data in Latin America. I proposed a session about Open Data + Linked 
> Data to discuss how semantics and LOD in general can help government 
> and civi organizations. I want to share the main ideas that emerged 
> from the conversation:
>
> - SW/LOD sounds really cool and the direction where thing should move.
> - However there are many technical aspects that remain unsolved
> - Since for many people having a relatively good solution using CSV, 
> JSON, etc. is easier, they don't want to use SW/LOD because it is an 
> overkill and too complicated.
>
> So my question is: Why we don't see lots of civic apps using Linked 
> Data? Where are the SW activists? Why we haven't been able to 
> demonstrate to the hacker community the benefits of using semantic 
> technologies? Is it because they are hard to use? They don't scale 
> well in many cases (as a googled pointed out)? Are we too busy working 
> in academia/businesses?
>
> I know very few civic apps using semantic technologies and I don't 
> think I have seen anyone that has made real impact in any country. I 
> would love if you can prove me wrong and if we can discuss how can we 
> involve more activists and hackers into the SW/LOD community.
>
>
> Alvaro Graves-Fuenzalida
> Web: http://graves.cl - Twitter: @alvarograves


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