As all studious web watchers know, the next wave of internet innovation has been brewing for some time, as massive amounts of data has been pumped onto the web and made available for people to share-and-compare, play with and link to. Yes, prepare yourselves people, The Web Of Data is on the way. A world in which databases sit out on the web instead of behind firewalls, allowing new powerful styles of collaboration. For corporations that have built competitive advantage around IP and black box business models the idea of data being open on the web is, to say the least, a bit scary. However, in reality, it's just the next step along the journey that the web is inviting the world to take. Initially, the notion of sharing documents on the web seemed unwise, then opening up personal information on social networks appeared risky. But both have quickly become the norm, and of course are made up of data. So this next evolution is just more of the same. None of which will stop the corporate fear rising however. In the same way that strange ideas emerged about the dangers of sharing company information using simple social media tools, peculiar fears will surface at the prospect of sharing databases that have previously been held under lock, key and firewall. In fact, many of these fears are based on misconceptions and misguided analysis. For instance, in the corporate world ‘open’ is often translated as ‘anarchic’. Despite the fact that, as with blogs and social networks, there is plenty of control built into new 'open' systems. For example, if you don't want the crazies to...





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