[via Social Synergy Weblog]

[bliki | What is bliki?]

Slashdot reports about Google's launch of Google Spreadsheet. While this may be an attempt on Google's part to try and insert advertising into new online realms, the core idea of co-editable spreadsheets and sharing data is definitely worthwhile.

Not many people are interested in putting their own personal data onto someone else's servers. But, co-creating public or community data, and making that data open and shareable and re-useable adds a new dimension to knowledge commons.

Several similar efforts existed before the launch of Google's online spread sheets, including:

• EditGrid
• NumSum
• iRows
• Numbler
• WikiCalc

The EditGrid developers weblog envisions co-editable web-based spreadsheets as a platform of data democracy:

A platform of data democracy In Wikipedia,
users join the rest of the world to tie pieces together into a full
picture. But there are many types of data which is not “wikipediable”,
from comparing mobile phones to real-time tracking of where avian
flu-infected birds are found dead.

Wiki data adds a quantitative dimension to wiki, which is an otherwise largely qualitative sphere of human collaboration.

For instance, communities can keep track of, and collaboratively create
data bases on all sorts of data about their community, from
environmental quality, to crime statistics, to termite or carpenter ant
infestations per-household. This can allow people to collectively make
facts about their communities transparent. It can also help them
predict future trends together based on statistics.

Nicholas Negroponte once said: “In a digital age, data about money is worth more than money.”

The democratization of the tools needed to collaboratively collect and analyze data lower the barrier of entry for people to utilize and share data.

More resources: http://del.icio.us/srose/wikidata http://del.icio.us/srose/opendata