Open Data 500: Proof that open data fuels economic activity - TechRepublic

"I've been trying to make dollars and sense of the open data economy for years. Does releasing data result in a more transparent healthcare marketplace? What business models for open data work? Will publishing open climate data increase community resilience? Will releasing more open government data make better laws and result in more accountable governments, improvements to public services, or trillions of dollars of additional economic activity, as McKinsey & Company projected in October 2013? The somewhat frustrating, if accurate, answer to all of these questions is often 'maybe,' with anecdotal examples and many layers of caveats to ground the response in context. Before I go any further on that count, I think it would be useful to step back and consider what open data means ... The Open Data 500, conducted by the Governance Lab (the GovLab) at NYU with funding from the John L. and James S. Knight Foundation, bills itself as 'the first comprehensive study of U.S. companies that use open government data to generate new business and develop new products and services.' This weekend, I spoke with Joel Gurin, senior advisor at the GovLab and director of the Open Data 500 project, about his book,Open Data Now, and what he has learned since its publication. Gurin was formerly the executive vice president of Consumers Union and editorial director of Consumer Reports. From 2009 to 2012, Gurin was the chief of the Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau of the Federal Communications Commission and served as chair of the White House Task Force on Smart Disclosure ..."