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<DIV><FONT face=Arial></FONT><FONT face=Arial>Alex Writes: </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>Of course those who aggregate data own it. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>Data is not "information" until it is aggregated into
useful order. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>Data is just chaos until you must apply "neg-entropy" to
find the patterns and order in the data - THEN you have useful
information!</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>In the 1980's I created the Boston Computer
Exchange. We aggregating data about people who owned computers they wanted
to sell and buyers who wanted them. Once a week we reported the
<STRONG>"BoCoEx Closing Prices Report"</STRONG> and this little report was
picked up by all the major computer magazines and appeared as a new item. A
lot of people had price information - we had aggregated it and made it into a
report - thus we added value. And later sold access to that data to those who
needed it...</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>There is irony in your comment about small companies
are being bought up by BIG companies - nothing new in that - what is ironic is
that the BIG companies were themselves tiny upstarts just a few years ago...
Google did not start as a HUGE enterprise worth billions - it started as two
guys in a garage. Same for Feedburner... </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>There is no point in trying to stop the process. It
will go on whether you like it or not. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>The message is LOUD - find an area of data that is NOT
being addressed and create an enterprise that aggregates data and processes it
into useful information. Any of us could have created YouTube or
SecondLife or FeedBurner... Those guys put in the sweat equity to make it a
success. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>Find an area that is NOT being addressed and start to
work. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial></FONT><FONT face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>Alex Randall</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>Professor of Communication - Univ of the Virgin
Islands</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>Former Owner - Boston Computer Exchange</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>Burak Wrote: </FONT><BR>You've probably following the
recent news about the small scale <BR>social web 2.0 companies being
acquired by giant corporations (e.g., <BR>StumbleUpon acquired by Ebay,
Feedburner acquired by Google). <BR>Feedburner tracks your blog's RSS feed
statistics and shows the <BR>number of subscribers momentarily, daily,
weekly, monthly, and <BR>yearly. Now all your data is changing hands, from
Feedburner to Google.<BR><BR>I wonder how you feel about it?<BR><BR>I think this
is an important moment to pay attention to how inhumane <BR>the data
ownership laws in USA: One who aggregates data owns it.<BR></DIV></BODY></HTML>