Data sharing: the next generation

This is what I love about science and what, I feel, many of the anti-science people don't like about it. It is at its core, fundamentally democratic and non-hierarchical. Now I know that sounds funny to some (in fact it is hard for me to believe sometimes) since science is associated almost in lockstep with academe which is (at it core) hierarchical in nature (and thus suffers from lack of democratic principals I feel). This is true, and sites like these may well break some of the strangle hold that academe has had on the process of science. That last assertion needs follow-up so I should write more about that in the future.

What do others think about the influence of academe on science?

clipped from www.nature.com

The Internet has already become a place for people to share knowledge, opinions, music and videos. Now, in a slightly geekier aspect of the same trend, social software is allowing people to share data too. More than 1 million data sets have been uploaded to the data-sharing site Swivel since its launch in December. And on 23 January, IBM labs launched Many Eyes, which allows users to visualize their data with tools previously available only to experts.

The idea is to make data analysis more democratic, as tools such as Google Earth have done for geographic visualization

Making such tools available will not only empower individuals, Viégas predicts, the collective intelligence and expertise of users will result in new insights.

Links
Swivel
IBM's Many Eyes