The open exchange of data is a simple and seductive concept. By providing data through an API, your customers, suppliers and partners can make use of it in new and interesting ways – creating new and compelling cooperation, business and consumption models.

In practice, there are a number of philosophical, cultural and practical problems preventing the adoption of this idea. Organizations are unable to, or unwilling to, make information available in reusable formats. When they do, consumers often find that the data doesn’t meet their needs. The underlying reasons for these symptoms are not all immediately obvious, and cannot, or in some cases should not, be solved with technology alone.

This presentation discusses of a number of these issues, based on experience of supplying and using data feeds both inside and outside the organizational firewall (with varying degrees of success). We’ve not been able to solve all of these problems ourselves, but hope to raise the understanding and discussion of them in the wider developer community.