Show me the money

That was my response to Peter Batty's call for comment on his GITA panel this week:

"show me the money", what business model do crowd-sourcing or other neo-geo's have that generates sustainable income, if: a) data is free (new data.gov), b) software is free (FOSS) and c) services are TBD [in other words] do going concerns really work on neo-geo, or do they use paleo work to bankroll the neo, and if so what is their go-forward plan across Moore's chasm?

While this slots right in with #directionsapb blogpost and my earlier one, watch below for Pete's new insights from his good questions:

Fantastic upcoming panel at GITA!!
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I’m planning for the discussion to be very flexible and interactive, and I’ll take questions from the audience, but I do have a few topics and questions lined up. The following are some candidates:

• Can crowdsourcing give you good enough quality? What are its limitations?
• What does crowdsourcing do to the notion of “authoritative” data?
• Many OGC standards are based on a technical approach that is 10 years old and predates newer web standards and approaches. Do they have a future or do we need to start again, or significantly rework them?
• What are the limitations of the more lightweight data sharing standards like KML and GeoRSS?
• What are the factors that determine whether a standard becomes widely adopted or not?
• Will Google become the default way we find spatial data (or has it already)? Would this be a good thing or a bad thing?
• Do you think that the traditional GIS vendors will still be around in 5-10 years?

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