Common data formats are unleashing a revolution in accessing and manipulating data. Up until not too long ago, data was typically authored in a single application and stored in a proprietary format that locked that data down to only being readable by the authoring application.
But XML and common data formats like CSV and KML make it easy now to publish data sets on line that can be consumed by many different applications. The Obama administration in their goal to introduce greater government transparency is releasing publicly available data sets. In June the data.gov site launched with 47 data sets. The goal is to create up to 100,000 data feeds. As publicly accessible, the data can be searched, extracted and analyzed. Data set tagging is also in the works in the upcoming months. Planned is an IT dashboard that would allow citizens to track government spending across various IT projects.
