Here’s a post that sums up the evening really well, including a patented Craighton Berman sketchnotes item!

Bonus: Here’s a pic of Brett’s camera setup in my kitchen:

Governments have started opening data for many reasons: it is a politically positive action and it alleviates the responsibility of analyzing and interpreting the data internally. Social Networks open data so they can become more valuable as the hub of many spokes, since 3rd parties will develop applications that make their data more valuable. Will traditional businesses open their data? Are some forms of data such as financial data necessarily closed-off and high-priced?

One of the things I focused on in my remarks was that governments already publish a wealth of data; they just may not conceive of these efforts as a part of the “open data” movement. For example, New York City has spreadsheets of every building permit issued going back to 2003. It’s not a “data feed”, but it’s definitely useful. The nascent industry built around open government stands on the shoulders of these spreadsheet-makers.

Open Gov. Discussion at Obtiva Geekfest from Obtiva on Vimeo.

Complete audio of the panel here and links to the intro and Q&A.

DXO Interview at Gov 2.0 2010 from Daniel X. O’Neil on Vimeo.

MSNBC.com Buys EveryBlock as Interest in Local Content Grows | Kara Swisher | BoomTown | AllThingsD.

EveryBlock takes a slightly different approach, scouring a mass of publicly available data in a variety of U.S. cities from a variety of public records–such as crime stats, building permits and restaurant inspections–and reassembling them into more comprehensible and geographically relevant news feeds, depending on what a user asks for.

EveryBlock.com, which compiles information from agencies of several cities and presents it in a friendly format, has been trying to provide New York City residents with detailed information about crime. To get the statistics for New York, EveryBlock’s “people person,” Daniel O’Neil, has had to make phone calls and develop relationships.In Chicago, where EveryBlock got its start, residents wanting to know what crimes have occurred in their area simply type in their address or neighborhood and receive a list of reported offenses. Clicking on the crime brings more information, including a locator map. This comes directly from the police department’s records. By contrast, all the New York Every Block site offers is a weekly compendium of crimes by precinct, with no details on the reports and no indication of where in the precinct the alleged offense occurred.While EveryBlock has not been able to persuade New York City’s police department to make that information accessible, EveryBlock does provide access to New York restaurant inspections and building violations. The information is much more accessible on EveryBlock where anyone can search for violations in a particular ZIP code or by the name of a facility.O’Neil says it is absurd that city agencies leave it to third party projects like his to provide information access. “It’s unethical for cities to say that some external service is going to be essential to displaying city service requests,” he said.Making records accessible is not just a matter of honest government, O’Neil said; it’s a matter of being cost effective. “The city spends an enormous amount of time and energy and human resources and technical resources to create reports that are practically worthless,” he explained.