I spend almost every evening going through all my non-science related feeds in Google Reader. The bulk of these feeds follow the tech industry or the business of the tech industry. As any self respected reader of techmeme will tell you, a fair bit of the chatter on the web these days is about user-generated content, something at the heart of Web 2.0. A related subject is the monetization of the aforementioned content. The success of MySpace, YouTube and the likely billion dollar buyout of Facebook is just an example of the commercial value of online content.
On many occasions, I find my thoughts wandering on to the question of scientific content. To me that is the ultimate form of user-generated content, which makes it somewhat disconcerting that there has been no systematic effort to organize that data, at least none that really draws the community together to make this happen. A good chunk of biological data rightfully belongs in the public domain. The challenge remains: How do we organize all the data in a form can be queried, mined, and monetized appropriately? Right now, the data are distributed all over the web, without any real organization or framework. All this always brings me back to the W3C. Sir Tim Berners-Lee and colleagues have had a ton of experience and success at developing a framework that enables both content providers and consumers develop the relationships that have made the Web as successful as it has been. Yes, semantic standards haven’t quite become the norm, but blogs, content management systems, etc are paving the way for a web where information is increasingly being semantically linked. It is a world that people at Nature Publishing Group have recognized, as demostrated by their recent effort in publishing standards. It would be interesting if some organization, perhaps the Life Science group at the W3C in conjunction with organizations like NCBI, EBI, RCSB, MGED, HUPO, etc can spearhead such an effort. The W3C life sciences group has not gained much traction, at least to my knowledge, and perhaps the reason is that the community-wide dialogue is not happening. Maybe a Google could get involved? I am sure they would love to index the “biological web”.
Which brings us back to monetization? Some would argue that biological information belongs in the public domain and should be accessible freely. I agree, but it depends on how one defines information. Gene sequences, protein structures, etc, do belong in the public domain, but using that information to make decisions, products, and come to all kinds of conclusions is where the fun lies. Some of these aspects are monetizable and should be. If there was a framework that allowed people to upload biological content to the web, and then search, mine, and analyze that content, then I am certain that reasonable monetizaton models can be developed. That can include discoveries that could remain proprietary (a new drug for instance, or a process to perturb an interaction network, etc). I have a few ideas on the kind of monetization models that could succeed, but with the framework being so far away, that is somewhat moot at this point.
I might completely change my mind on this subject in a few months, but an article by Eric K. Neumann in the October 2006 issue of Bio-IT World treads the same waters. In that article Eric talks about a drug safety commons and uses some similar arguments, or so I think, for making that data available in a Commons. He argues that while generating the information does not come for free, the lack of re-usability of that information only increases drug costs (both time and money). I couldn’t agree more. This is an era of knowledge, and how that knowledge is used is what describes success, rather than the knowledge itself.
So what do those in the community think? I realize that the view presented above is a little utopian, but bloggers are allowed their flights of fancy. If you perchance read this, I would be more than interested in your opinion, preferably in the form of a comment.
Update:I had totally forgotten about science commons, but thanks to a new post in my feed reader, I would like to point people there. The latest post is about an interview with David de Graaf, director of systems biology at Pfizer. I would like to point out that Teranode (where Eric works) is involved with science commons as well.
Further Reading
The advantages of a drug safety commons
Technorati Tags: Web 2.0, User-generated content, W3C, Semantic Web, Life Science, Bioinformatics, Information Technology, Monetization
Biological content: Access and monetization
I spend almost every evening going through all my non-science related feeds in Google Reader. The bulk of these feeds follow the tech industry or the business of the tech industry. As any self respected reader of techmeme will tell you, a fair bit of the chatter on the web these days is about user-generated content, something at the heart of Web 2.0. A related subject is the monetization of the aforementioned content. The success of MySpace, YouTube and the likely billion dollar buyout of Facebook is just an example of the commercial value of online content.
On many occasions, I find my thoughts wandering on to the question of scientific content. To me that is the ultimate form of user-generated content, which makes it somewhat disconcerting that there has been no systematic effort to organize that data, at least none that really draws the community together to make this happen. A good chunk of biological data rightfully belongs in the public domain. The challenge remains: How do we organize all the data in a form can be queried, mined, and monetized appropriately? Right now, the data are distributed all over the web, without any real organization or framework. All this always brings me back to the W3C. Sir Tim Berners-Lee and colleagues have had a ton of experience and success at developing a framework that enables both content providers and consumers develop the relationships that have made the Web as successful as it has been. Yes, semantic standards haven’t quite become the norm, but blogs, content management systems, etc are paving the way for a web where information is increasingly being semantically linked. It is a world that people at Nature Publishing Group have recognized, as demostrated by their recent effort in publishing standards. It would be interesting if some organization, perhaps the Life Science group at the W3C in conjunction with organizations like NCBI, EBI, RCSB, MGED, HUPO, etc can spearhead such an effort. The W3C life sciences group has not gained much traction, at least to my knowledge, and perhaps the reason is that the community-wide dialogue is not happening. Maybe a Google could get involved? I am sure they would love to index the “biological web”.
Which brings us back to monetization? Some would argue that biological information belongs in the public domain and should be accessible freely. I agree, but it depends on how one defines information. Gene sequences, protein structures, etc, do belong in the public domain, but using that information to make decisions, products, and come to all kinds of conclusions is where the fun lies. Some of these aspects are monetizable and should be. If there was a framework that allowed people to upload biological content to the web, and then search, mine, and analyze that content, then I am certain that reasonable monetizaton models can be developed. That can include discoveries that could remain proprietary (a new drug for instance, or a process to perturb an interaction network, etc). I have a few ideas on the kind of monetization models that could succeed, but with the framework being so far away, that is somewhat moot at this point.
I might completely change my mind on this subject in a few months, but an article by Eric K. Neumann in the October 2006 issue of Bio-IT World treads the same waters. In that article Eric talks about a drug safety commons and uses some similar arguments, or so I think, for making that data available in a Commons. He argues that while generating the information does not come for free, the lack of re-usability of that information only increases drug costs (both time and money). I couldn’t agree more. This is an era of knowledge, and how that knowledge is used is what describes success, rather than the knowledge itself.
So what do those in the community think? I realize that the view presented above is a little utopian, but bloggers are allowed their flights of fancy. If you perchance read this, I would be more than interested in your opinion, preferably in the form of a comment.
Update:I had totally forgotten about science commons, but thanks to a new post in my feed reader, I would like to point people there. The latest post is about an interview with David de Graaf, director of systems biology at Pfizer. I would like to point out that Teranode (where Eric works) is involved with science commons as well.
Further Reading
The advantages of a drug safety commons
Technorati Tags: Web 2.0, User-generated content, W3C, Semantic Web, Life Science, Bioinformatics, Information Technology, Monetization