Lessons in Open Metadata

the tube by realSMILEY

The recipe? A large public(ish) organisation (TfL) opens its data kimono to developers. Six days later, a group of geeks gather for a hack-day and a thing of beauty is born, the live tube map.

Have a look. It's rather addictive, like watching the download bar on a browser slowly creep across the screen (just me?). Congratulations to Matthew Somerville (@dracos) for hacking this together so quickly.

It's a text-book example of what happens when raw data is opened up and reinforces the good work of the folks at data.gov.uk providing wider access to juicy government data sets.

If metadata is your thing, you might also be interested in a couple of events we've been working on with the Creative Industries KTN to promote the launch of a £5m collaborative metadata R&D competition. There's more info on our site with events taking place in Birmingham, London and Cambridge.

Picture (cc) realSMILEY.

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