Donate to the commons this holiday season

Holiday season is nearly upon us. Donating to a charity is an alternative form of gift giving that shows you care, whilst directing your money towards helping those that need it. There are a lot of great and deserving causes you can support, and I'm certainly not going to tell you where you should donate your money. But I've … Continue reading Donate to the commons this holiday season →

The practice of open data

Open data is data that anyone can access, use and share. Open data is the result of several processes. The most obvious one is the release process that results in data being made available for reuse and sharing. But there are other processes that may take place before that open data is made available: collecting … Continue reading The practice of open data →

Discogs: a business based on public domain data

When I'm discussing business models around open data I regularly refer to a few different examples. Not all of these have well developed case studies, so I thought I'd start trying to capture them here. In this first write-up I'm going to look at Discogs. In an attempt to explore a few different aspects of the service … Continue reading Discogs: a business based on public domain data →

Checking Fact Checkers

As of last month Google News attempts to highlight fact check articles. Content from fact checking organisations will be tagged so that their contribution to on-line debate can be more clearly identified. I think this is a great move and a first small step towards addressing wider concerns around use of the web for disinformation and … Continue reading Checking Fact Checkers →

Elinor Ostrom and data infrastructure

One of the topics that most interests me at the moment is how we design systems and organisations that contribute to the creation and maintenance of the open data commons. This is more than a purely academic interest. If we can understand the characteristics of successful open data projects like Open Street Map or Musicbrainz then … Continue reading Elinor Ostrom and data infrastructure →