Re: job: make government data accessible and useful

[Carl Malamud <xxxx@media.org>]

On Mar 8, 2008, at 4:19 PM, Aaron Swartz wrote:

> > Is this a newco?

It's an open space.  A few people have done the political junk (e.g.,  
the CNET dude), there are a few sort of interesting web 2.0 plays,  
both for-profit and non-profit.  But, nobody seems to have figured out  
that there is $10b/year in the U.S. alone in providing workflow  
solutions on top of large public domain databases (large = about 150  
million pages, and very soon all 150 million of those pages are going  
to be visible if I get my way :).

I bet nobody on Sand Hill Road has had a credible play that goes after  
Thomson, Reed Elsivier, and Wolters Kluwer.  You could start this with  
angel money and pretty quickly ratchett it up with vc's and then  
institutions.  $.0.02.

Carl