Ask HN: Opportunities for Structured Data?

#1

Post by aidscholar » Tue, Aug 17, 2010, 10:38 PM UTC

Ever since Google acquired ITA and Metaweb, I've been thinking of other verticals where building / aggregating structured data would be valuable. Seems like many niches have already been covered:

- Lawyers: Avvo

- Doctors: Vitals

- Location: Yelp/Foursquare/etc

- Cars: Vast

- Pets: Vast

- Movies: Imdb

- Credit Cards: NerdWallet

I think it would be interesting to brainstorm some other verticals where building your own structured data could be a viable business.

Here are some that I'm thinking about:

- Colleges: It's a pain comparing which college is better vs another. Having a single structured database/model for all colleges would be great. Could extend it to comparing courses/costs/future salaries/etc.

- Disease: There are some companies already doing this, but I feel like it could be more open. Symptoms, cures, timelines, progression, location, etc.

- Soft Goods: Clothes, accessories, etc. Not sure how you'd go about creating / gathering enough structured data, but seems like there is a need.

What do you think are some good opportunities to apply the structured data biz model?

Re: Ask HN: Opportunities for Structured Data?

#2

Post by petervandijck » Tue, Aug 17, 2010, 10:52 PM UTC

I like the colleges one. Good question too, giving it some thought...

Re: Ask HN: Opportunities for Structured Data?

#3

Post by sabj » Tue, Aug 17, 2010, 11:11 PM UTC

Colleges breaks down when trying to turn qualitative experiences into quantitative data, I don't like how the models come out. (Doesn't mean they don't end up successful, obviously.)

My fave approach in the space recently has been Unigo.com, nice aggregation of user generated content to great effect.

Re: Ask HN: Opportunities for Structured Data?

#4

Post by aidscholar » Tue, Aug 17, 2010, 11:47 PM UTC

sabj wrote: post #3

Colleges breaks down when trying to turn qualitative experiences into quantitative data, I don't like how the models come out. (Doesn't mean they don't end up successful, obviously.) My fave approach in the space recently has been Unigo.com, nice aggregation of user generated content to great effect.

It's hard even to measure the quantitative stuff now. For example, how do you perform a query like "find me 10 colleges in the west coast, that offer both a CS bachelors degree and masters, ordered by average entry SAT score"?

Re: Ask HN: Opportunities for Structured Data?

#5

Post by stoney » Wed, Aug 18, 2010, 2:03 AM UTC

In the UK several of the national newspapers publish university league tables - not sure if you get the same thing in the US? Might provide some inspiration for you.

See http://extras.timesonline.co.uk/stug/universityguide.php for an example.

Re: Ask HN: Opportunities for Structured Data?

#6

Post by ww520 » Wed, Aug 18, 2010, 3:55 AM UTC

- Books, book categories, book reviews.

- Wines, beers.

- Food ingredients and nutrition (FDA data).

- Public and private companies, financial data and reports.

- Housing data, county records.

Re: Ask HN: Opportunities for Structured Data?

#7

Post by joshu » Wed, Aug 18, 2010, 4:25 AM UTC

This is a good line of thinking.

Disease (health) is a huge, huge industry.

(does Vast really do pets?)

More ideas: Travel, Financial Instruments (credit cards and other debt)

Re: Ask HN: Opportunities for Structured Data?

#8

Post by aidscholar » Wed, Aug 18, 2010, 4:35 AM UTC

joshu wrote: post #7

This is a good line of thinking. Disease (health) is a huge, huge industry. (does Vast really do pets?) More ideas: Travel, Financial Instruments (credit cards and other debt)

Yeah - Vast really does pets. http://www.vast.com/pets

Do you really think there's still an opportunity in Travel given ITA/Google?

Re: Ask HN: Opportunities for Structured Data?

#9

Post by BonoboBoner » Wed, Aug 18, 2010, 7:34 AM UTC

Although I dont like the word, I d say "semantic" endpoints for things like YQL to enable easy access to data without having to parse html manually.

Re: Ask HN: Opportunities for Structured Data?

#10

Post by smiler » Wed, Aug 18, 2010, 8:48 AM UTC

Household appliances - no site I know of allows you to search them based on the width, height and depth but for people who are replacing them, then that is often the first consideration - yes there are 'standard' sizes but how many houses are built to standard :) Another thing of course is when buying an oven or fridge, important consideration is capacity. I would love to be able to search for say 'show me all fridges which have a max width of 90cm and order them by capacity'. Add In price comparison and links to buy