There is so much excitement about Linked Data, Open Data, and in general the emerging Web of Data. Consensus appears to be to just get data out on the Web, and hope for amazing things will happen. Well, but what could these amazing things look like?

If we had a Web of Data, what would you build?

I’d like to start a challenge to get people to talk about some more concrete ideas for applications. The rules are easy:

1. Assume all the world’s open data is available to you, and you don’t have to worry about data formats, schemas, integration, etc.

2. Your idea is concrete enough that you can imagine yourself or someone else actually implementing it. No magic, no artificial intelligence, no algorithms that don’t exist today.

3. Write about your idea within the next 30 days (before May 8th) and ping this post.

4. If some of the data sources for your app already exist on the Web, name them.

Here’s my idea: If we had a Web of Data, I would built an application for painless travel planning. It would integrate flight plans, train timetables, bus routes, car rental offers, etc. And the user would be able to just say: I want to go from A to B: Find me the best/cheapest/fastest routes.

Because today travel planning is a pain: often your destination city has no airport, so you have to choose one of multiple airports of nearby cities. And the optimal choice for that depends on train connections from those airports to your destination city. And the choice of a train station depends on bus connections. And so on. With a Web of Data, an application could do all that combining for me, the same way flight booking sites do that today for just flights.

What is your idea? Spread the word, and post the idea either in the comments section or write it down on your own blog and ping this post within the next 30 days. I’ll set up a poll to select the best ideas from all submissions.

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[...] Kobilarov, who runs a Linked Data startup from Germany called Uberblic Labs, recently issued an interesting challenge on his blog. He asked: if we had a Web of Data, what would you build? Not to steal Georgi’s [...]

Open Thread: What Would You Build With a Web of Data? | Gabbur added these pithy words on Apr 09 10 at 8:18 am

[...] on this topic.Georgi Kobilarov, the CEO of a German, Linked Data startup called Uberblic, issued an open challenge on his blog, asking: if we had a Web of Data, what would you [...]

Open thread: If we had a Web of Data, what would you build? | Search Computing Blog added these pithy words on Apr 10 10 at 11:57 am

[...] Kobilarov has a post up asking what would you build with a function web of data and I have a few ideas. These all need fleshing out (and probably spell-checking ;), but if I [...]

If We Had A Web Of Data I Would Build … at Otaqui.Com added these pithy words on Apr 12 10 at 4:25 pm

If we had a Web of Data, I would build an application for planning a dinner/movie date. The application would take into account approximate travel distances between my current location and nearby restaurants and theaters, the hours when the restaurants are open, and the current movie schedules. The application would be useful for travelers and for busy parents (like me) who don’t get to go on dates very often.

Bill Smith added these pithy words on Apr 08 10 at 3:39 pm

With a Web of Linked Data we can, and will, alleviate the scourge of SPAM.
FOAF+SSL is a simple, practical, and functioning example.

Unambiguous and verifiable Identity, via WebIDs that are bound SSL based Certificates and Private Keys, is the root of all next generation business models for the Web.

Kingsley

Kingsley Idehen added these pithy words on Apr 08 10 at 3:46 pm

My “web of data” would create an application that was the ultimate “instant review of literature”–it could take any research topic and backtrace (through articles, dissertations, presentations, and their accompanying reference lists) all published research articles on that topic, sorting them by year of publication, author, country of origin, journal and major findings.

Professor Aloha added these pithy words on Apr 09 10 at 8:17 am

I would Like to built an aggregation tool which can aggregate all the possible resources related to a person he created, edited, published etc. End result will be highly semantified and enriched profile of a person. This can surely be achieved by Linked Data as it negate the unstructured and wall gardened data. I am working on one details and application can be accessed from : http://cafsial.opendatahub.com.

Atif Latif added these pithy words on Apr 09 10 at 9:40 am

I would build a web of things/industrial products.
Including:
products simular to each other (derived from producers intranets)
complete description, specification and HowTos for every single item/class.
a multidimensional map of its prices: where,when,volume discounts, price of substitutes

So no one (not even the dumbest) gets tricked any more by Marketing/Sales Huffpuff and in the end people have more money in the pocket or work less in their mediocre jobs.
And we (as in humans) return to repairment instead of throwing away.

Maximilian added these pithy words on Apr 09 10 at 11:37 am

Nutrition and other substance intake plus any physical activity of every person on the planet. Correlate with environmental factors that person is exposed to as well from work and any other place they spend their time.

There are lots of applications here in health, marketing, etc

Adrian added these pithy words on Apr 10 10 at 1:57 am

Hi! I’m a researcher at Politecnico di Milano, one of the major technical universities in Europe, and our group is working on a project that should enable many of the applications you’re mentioning. If you’d like to have a look, the project’s Website is http://www.search-computing.com/. We also edit a blog on related topics, and we published a book on it.

Alessandro Bozzon added these pithy words on Apr 10 10 at 11:42 am

With a web of data I – together with thousands of Open Source developers – would build an open version of Wolfram Alpha on top of it. After that I’d expect to experience the “event horizon” of “technological singularity” ( http://bit.ly/12Jvot) which – I expect – to be some fun.
br. Jouko
P.S. Georgi i like this blog. Thank you for writing it.

JoukoSalonen added these pithy words on Apr 11 10 at 10:10 am

Not sure if this breaks the rules but I would imagine that many open data applications would also involve the use of proprietary or private data (i.e. personal medical or financial data). Some applications could include the matching of organ donors against those needing donor organs as soon as someone is admitted into hospital (just in case) and then combining that with geo-location data and real-time route planning. Sorry if this is a bit morbid.

Gary Price added these pithy words on Apr 12 10 at 3:19 pm

I have already produce a research assistant. It can build an ontology using previous research. Currently, it can pull from everything that Google indexes at one time except Code. It can view an unlimited number of repositories at one time. It is not concerned with timeline. I consider that to be irrelevant. If you look at the history of ideas time starts to get useless.

Tom Folkes added these pithy words on Apr 17 10 at 6:53 pm

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