Re: Business Models, Profitability, and Linked Data

On 7 June 2013 18:52, Kingsley Idehen <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:



> • 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


>
> 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 (to the tune of 1 billion+)

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

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.  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...

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


>
> Related:
>
> 1. http://www.wolframalpha.com/**input/?i=function<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<http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=relation>-- Relation (a Relation is really a Function)
> 3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/**Identifier<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identifier>-- you have literals or references (e.g., HTTP URIs)
> 4. http://tools.ietf.org/html/**rfc5988#section-3<http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5988#section-3>-- Links (which denote Relations)
> 5. http://www.w3.org/**DesignIssues/diagrams/history/**proposal-fig1.gif<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 .
>
>
>