Linked Data for Enterprises – a one way scenario?

Since the Linked Data paradigm is attracting a lot of attention – also in a lot of different industries which aren´t used to internet driven business processes, I am wondering, which are the best cases for them to build parts of their information management strategy on top of the “Web of Data”.

It´s quite obvious for media industry how to use linked data, or for internet companies like Amazon, but what´s in for a, let´s say, insurance company, as soon as it comes to the point where they should expose parts of their data for the “Web of Data”.

One point to start the line of arguments with is: “Why do you have a website at all?”.

Has resistance something to do with the ability to “control” a traditional HTML-website? Because as soon as mashups play a role, it´s not as easy as it was before to see,

• who,
• when and
• why

someone uses one´s data.

On the other hand, is OpenCalais really “open”? It´s not possible to use the services without an API key. So all the questions above can be even better monitored than before, as soon as you have registered users using your LOD services. OpenCalais´ way to serve customers might become very soon a model for the business layer above the LOD cloud in general.

Since the LOD cloud is kind of the basic infrastructure which drives the whole process – this layer should remain a freely accessible one. But how could new business models be built on top of it (and constantly spend money on maintaining and extending the underlying infrastructure)?

Where could enterprises start using Linked Data? Only by retrieving data from the “outside” and mash it up with the “inside” – only one way?

I think we can learn a lot from one of the “oldest” networks on earth: The energy business is re-structuring a lot at the moment, and it foresees a lot more “mashups” than before – even single households with their own little plants will be able to PRODUCE energy, not only consuming it.

This has advantages for many stakeholders (except the shareholders), so what does it mean for the internet business – when will it transform from a centralised network into a more decentralised one? Which role will all the huge “information plants” like Google play?

Information has no “place” anymore, energy can´t be shipped around the world. We should rethink the meaning of a “data store” and information will flow without flooding us. Linked Data might become the essence.