A fine mainstream media report on a new OpenData resource from Alberta, Canada has surfaced on the CTV (Alberta) web portal. What I like really like about this report is that it is quite accurate and truthful, getting right to the point and describing exactly why opendata is important to users and the business community. The report interviews a local consultant who describes several projects he’s accomplished thanks to the use of new opendata products. Users have already created a couple of apps (nice to see the featured product is a map) and there’s no doubt that many apps and products will follow.
A Government rep admits the data will be difficult to interpret for the average user and that there are about 250 datasets currently available. They do point out that within a year the amount of data available should swell to over 1,000 products. The government focus is to make information public so that developers and the public can innovate and create value from the data after all, that’s really what opendata is meant for!
Read more and see the video on the CTV news website and check out the new Alberta Open Data portal at http://data.alberta.ca/
