Surprising many at Where2.0 was Matt Galligan of Simplgeo (See @mg on Twitter). Feeling in a generous mood, SimpleGeo announced that their Places data is now open – really open, as in Creative Commons Zero (CC0) and copyright free. Galligan referenced their stance on open data, in particular with reference to the open knowledge definition – a piece of content or data is open if anyone is free to use, reuse, and redistribute it — subject only, at most, to the requirement to attribute and share-alike.
On the SimpleGeo blog Galligan discussed the company’s philosophy on the open data and their position as a services company not a data company… ” take our data, use it, make it your own, and make it better”. Obviously the idea here is to focus on the services the company offers and to encourage developers to leverage location and location-aware data to create cool apps and services. While on stage at Where2.0 Galligan noted how we are all sensors, gathering data in real time and cited the importance of developers having access to data. With access to real time data developers are helping provide tools that are working on real problems in real time.
See More:
- SimpleGeo blog
http://blog.simplegeo.com/2011/04/20/open-places-data/ - SimpleGeo Plcase
https://simplegeo.com/products/places/ - Where2.0 Videos
http://where2conf.com/where2011/public/content/video
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