Bigger Picture Research

Montage: Spain and China box office, H1 2009; UK DVD and Blu-ray, H1 2009; digital cinema; state of the UK film industry

2009-07-13T14:24:04+01:00

Spain is the first of two more territories for which box office data are now available for the first half of 2009. John Hopewell, writing in Variety, reports numbers released by the Federation of Spanish Cinemas (FECE) that show Spanish box office gross rose 13% in the first six months of 2009 over the same period in 2008, the first such rise in five years. Takings totalled Euros 296 million ($414.4 million), and cinema admissions were also up by 8%, to 48.8 million.

These are certainly encouraging figures, but as nothing compared to the growth seen in China since the start of the year. Box office there grew by 43%, to stand at $330.16 million (RMB 2.26 billion), according to figures published by the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT). ScreenDaily.com’s coverage reports that local cinema managers and analysts predict the year-end total ‘should be between $732 million and $805 million (RMB5-5.5 billion).’

Now for news closer to home. Earlier this month the British Video Association (BVA) released home entertainment figures based on data from the Official Charts Company, which reveal that over 3 million Blu-ray Discs have sold in the first half of 2009, a rise of 231% on the same period last year.

The BVA’s press release quotes Hannah Conduct, BVA Marketing Manager, as saying:

“There are now almost 1500 Blu-ray releases in the market covering a breadth of titles […] Older releases such as Trainspotting (4DVD), Bladerunner (Warner Home Video) and The Day the Earth Stood Still (20th Century Fox Home Entertainment), have all experienced sales success on this exciting format, years after their initial DVD release. Many more Blu-ray titles are anticipated in the latter part of this year so consumers will have plenty of opportunities to add to their home entertainment collections.”

The BVA points to evidence that the shift to Blu-ray may be displacing DVD sales, which recorded a fall of 9.5% year-on-year (I assume this is the decline in unit sales numbers rather than sales value).

Other, less positive, factors are also felt to have played a role. Lavinia Carey, BVA Director General, is quoted as saying:

“The home entertainment industry has weathered the recession extremely well during the last year but, sadly, with the loss of around 900 high street stores at the start of the year, following the demise of Woolworths and Zavvi, the sales generated from impulse purchases have been hit. This changing retail landscape has had a huge impact on our half year result. We hope as the year progresses that new retailers will fill the gap by stocking home entertainment products to give consumers a wider choice.”

Turning from home entertainment to exhibition, the good folks at Dodona Research have recently launched a report into digital cinema roll out across the globe, and Digitalcinemainfo.com offers the following taster:

Dodona say there are currently close to 12,000 screens converted to digital projection worldwide, with 5,000 of these 3D enabled, numbers which will rise to 18,000 and 10,000 respectively by the end of this year – in time for the release of James Cameron’s Avatar. Further out, Dodona see scope for the number of 3D screens to continue to climb over the next few years, perhaps representing 20% of the 110,000 cinema screens worldwide by 2012. But beyond this the company is more sceptical, pointing to the fact that a wholesale shift to 3D on the part of the film production industry seems unlikely in such a short timescale, and to the apparent absence of an alternative driver of conversion.

The full report, Digital Cinema Briefing, is available to purchase direct from Dodona.

And finally, a piece by Vanessa Thorpe caught my attention in yesterday’s Observer. Headlined ‘Why the British film revival is in danger of being killed off’, the article rakes over the smoldering embers of the debate about the state of the British film industry, which usually flares up around Oscar-time, Cannes or whenever somebody in officialdom casts their eye over public policy for film.

Thus, taking her cue from the ongoing Lords Communications Committee enquiry into British film and TV, Thorpe runs through various bits of contradictory evidence of awards and box office success on the one hand, and a local production sector that some claim is in ‘terminal decline’.

Perhaps unsurprisingly the piece is short on any definitive remedies, but this is in part due to the lack of a clear diagnosis of the problem. If nothing else, the article confirms that if you ask half a dozen industry luminaries what they make of the current situation you’re likely to get as many different answers in reply. Tim Bevan, co-founder of Working Title and soon-to-be ensconced as Chair of the UK Film Council, identified piracy as the key threat in his evidence to the Lords committee, whereas producer Andrew Eaton (formerly Deputy Chair of the UK Film Council), sees this as "a bit of a smokescreen".

Instead, he and screenwriter Jonathan Gems seem to share the view that we “are in thrall to the American industry”, and this is the seat of the problem. What’s needed, according to Eaton, is a “discussion about how you make the economy of the British film industry work.”

Gems goes further, offering the view that while we have plenty of talent in this country,

“our industry is just an adjunct of the American film industry. Hollywood dominates. Of course, at the moment Hollywood has the best overall product, but we invented cinema in many respects and yet we don't have our own cinema."

His solution? Convince the European Commission to pass legislation imposing a quota on the proportion of films shown in European cinemas that are made in Europe (50% is the figure quoted). "Then we would get our own industry pretty quickly," Gems says- although quite how this will deliver a more robust British industry remains unclear.

The debate, as framed in this way, is hamstrung both by the lack of a coherent vision of what’s happening on the ground (and it is a complicated picture- there is no single, homogeneous industry), and consensus about what the key issues are. How do you measure the strength and vitality of the film industry (especially given its heterogeneity)? Which indicators might we turn to, and how should we interpret them?

Big questions, indeed. We’ll have to wait until later this year to see whether the Lords Communications Committee can shed any light on the matter. In the meantime we can at least look forward to publication of the Q2 UK production statistics by the UK Film Council’s Research & Statistics Unit (due to appear this Thursday).

H1 2009 box office and admissions for Korea, Italy and Norway

2009-07-07T21:14:22+01:00

Jean Noh, writing in ScreenDaily.com, reports the latest South Korean box office data from the Korean Film Council (KOFIC). Box office gross reached a record high in the first half of 2009, totalling $375.68 million (KW476.8 billion), an increase of 5% on the same period in 2008.

Cinema admissions rose by 3%, to a total of 72.17 million. South Korean films saw their market share increase by 8% to stand at 45%, the same proportion as US films. Chinese films shared 4% of the market, European films 5% and Japanese films 1%.

Over at Variety.com, Nick Vivarelli reports Italian box office numbers for the first half of 2009, courtesy of Cinetel. The picture is decidedly less upbeat for the first six months of the year: cinema admissions fell by 2% during the period, to around 50 million. US films shared 65% of the total box office gross for the first six months of the year, amassing a box office haul of $292 million. Home grown titles took $136 million at the box office, and a market share of 24%.

The picture is altogether better in Norway, according to figures reported by Annika Pham, writing in Cineuropa.net. Cinema admissions rose by 8% during the first half of 2009, to stand at 5.6 million, and local films scored a record market share of 27%.

And finally... Zachary Pincus-Roth has written a splendid piece in Slate’s Summer Movies Special about why journalists don't account for inflation when they report box office records, resulting in ‘misleading speculation’ during the blockbuster season:

‘When The Dark Knight earned $158 million in its opening weekend last summer, journalists went gaga over the possibility that it would unseat Titanic as the all-time domestic box office leader. But the race was utter bunk. Accounting for inflation, the true record holder is Gone With the Wind, which—in 2009 dollars—earned over 50 percent more than Titanic and almost three times as much as The Dark Knight.’

This put me in mind of the British Film Institute's Ultimate Film Chart, a list of the all-time top 100 films based on UK cinema admissions estimates, which neatly sidesteps the inflation issue and reveals some interesting facets of British cinema going habits over the decades. Unfortunately it was compiled a few years back and hasn't been updated since: a case of stagnation, rather than inflation.

Film: greater than the sum of its arts

2009-07-05T21:21:06+01:00

I recently came across an intriguing paper by a pair of academics from Indiana State University's College of Business. Writing in the Journal of Statistics Education (Vol. 17, no. 1), Constance H. McLaren and Concetta A. DePaolo explore the use movie box office data to teach undergraduates the basic principles of business statistics (in a paper simply entitled Movie Data).

Using a dataset comprising weekend and daily box office data, plus total US domestic gross figures, for 49 titles, the authors explain how such a time series can provide practical examples of graphical analysis, forecasting, curve-fitting, rate of change analysis etc. The paper includes a general overview of the approach to using movie data in this way, alongside exercises and assignment questions for classroom use.

The significance of the movie dataset is twofold. First, a shed load of rich data is readily available from free sources online (the authors got their data from The Numbers, but as the list of box office sources in the left hand sidebar indicates, there are plenty of alternatives).

Second, and perhaps more importantly, movie data help to connect the abstract realm of statistics to the tangible, real world experiences and enthusiasms of students. As the authors note,

‘Using data that is familiar to them—they understand that receipts are higher on weekends, they know how blockbusters are released—ties statistical concepts from their classes to experiences in their lives.’

So it’s a win-win from a pedagogical point of view. Instructors can easily muster up-to-date and detailed datasets for classroom use, and students get to play around with numbers within a frame of reference they know and appreciate:

‘We have found that the use of real data increases student interest in the topics we teach in business statistics courses and in an upper level forecasting elective, and we anticipate that this would be the case in other statistics courses. Students seem to enjoy data tied to the entertainment industry, and they are quick to connect the time series patterns they find to their own social activities.’

In a funny old way it’s another fine example of the power of the moving image, and a reminder, if such was needed, that the film business is above all else a numbers game.

The value of free, online

2009-07-02T12:23:16+01:00

A recent study by Forbes Insights in association with Google has found evidence of the Internet’s growing importance as an information resource for business executives (Rise of the Digital C-Suite).

The ‘C-Suite’ in question, if you don’t already know, comprises the most senior executives in a company (i.e. suits with a C-word in their title. No, not that one- like CEO).

Anyway, Forbes conducted a survey of 354 top US C-worders and found three quarters (74%) of respondents ranked the internet as a ‘very valuable resource’, topping all other sources including work and personal contacts, trade publications, newspapers and magazines.

The most critical information executives searched for online was ‘competitor analysis’ (53% of respondents gave this answer), followed by ‘customer trends’ (41%) and ‘corporate developments such as news about mergers, acquisitions or joint ventures’ (39%).

The study also found variations in the way the internet is used and valued for business purposes, and according to the report these depend ‘a great deal on the executive’s age and work experience’.

‘This study identifies the differences between those top executives whose careers have coincided with the rise of the PC and the Internet with their older counterparts. These younger executives, who are leading the charge into the C-suite, locate information for decision-making themselves, search online frequently, are interested in video, and are open to the latest online technologies.’

For further detail you can download the report from the Forbes Insight page, or catch a summary with charts over at emarketer.com.

The Internet Movie Database (IMDb) is one of the online sources of information I use with some regularity, and in the last twenty four hours or so the Amazon-owned company has been forced to back down from plans to relegate writers' credits to a subordinate position in their film listings. IMDb had planned to move writers’ names from their current spot at the top of a film’s home page (alongside the Director and first billed cast) to the ‘Additional Details’ spot lower down.

Nikki Finke, of Deadline Hollywood Daily, got wind of the change from suitably outraged scribes and sparked on impromptu online campaign against the move. This was picked up on Twitter and within a matter of hours IMDb had responded to the ‘constructive criticism’ and rescinded its decision.

It’s another fascinating example of the power of online collective action, the speed and intensity of which can be quite breath-taking. But it’s also instructive for any regular IMDb users to look through the comments logged on Finke’s blog, as there are plenty of examples given of the unreliability of IMDb’s information; a salutary reminder (to C-worders and everyone else for that matter) that the internet may be awash with free information, but it’s not always of value. Caveat lector…

UK cinema admissions, May 2009

2009-06-26T14:43:49+01:00

Cinema going continues to fair well despite the sluggish economy according to the UK admissions tally for May, which has just been published by the Cinema Advertising Association (CAA).

The month recorded 15,775,945 ticket sales, which the CAA notes is the highest May total on record (since 1969).

Admissions for January to May 2009 are up 16% on the same period in 2008, further widening the gap seen last month (14%). The year to date admissions total is at its highest level since 2002 (see Figure 1).

Figure 1: UK cinema admissions, January to May 2009
Source: CAA/ Nielsen EDI

Star Trek was the top performing title at the UK box office during May, taking over £18 million, followed by X-Men Origins: Wolverine (£16 million) and Angels & Demons (£14 million):

On the compatibility of 'cinema' and 'Britain'

2009-06-22T01:00:00+01:00

As I write, the Edinburgh International Film Festival is in full swing. EIFF has long championed the best and brightest of our national cinema, and this year’s British Gala strand, from which the annual Michael Powell Award-winner will be drawn, offers up a gratifyingly eclectic mix. EIFF also publishes the indispensable Film UK Guide to British Film, listing key details of all British fiction feature and short films completed in the last year (the 2009 edition can be downloaded here.)

And either by happy chance or design the UK Film Council has just launched a major new report on the cultural impact of British cinema. The research, Stories We Tell Ourselves: The Cultural Impact of UK Film 1946-2006, was conducted by a research team drawn from Birkbeck University (led by Professor Ian Christie), Media Consulting Group and NARVAL Media. It marks the first concerted effort to measure, analyse and describe the impact of our national cinema on the wider culture at home and abroad. In the terms of a classic British understatement, this is no mean feat.

In recognition of the scale of the challenge, the foreword, from UKFC CEO John Woodward, indicates the report's preliminary status as a starting point for further enquiry and debate (scholarly or otherwise), rather than being the last, definitive word on the subject. The report can be filed under 'Pending further attention', and I look forward to reading what others make of it. My own view is that this is a thoughtful and stimulating beginning to what deserves to become a fecund arena of future study.

The researchers examined two samples of films drawn from a database of all UK feature-length films known to have been released over the reference period 1946-2006. The first comprised an 'intuitive list' of 200 such films that are widely regarded as 'significant and of lasting value' (ranging from The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp [1943] to This is England [2006]; the full list is available in the report appendices). The second sample was drawn randomly from the database, and 'devised as a check against the unavoidable subjectivity of the intuitive list'. The two samples overlap; Lawrence of Arabia (1962), for example, crops up in both.

In broad terms the researchers found that the films in the random sample tend to reinforce mainstream British values, whereas those in the intuitive sample 'tended to challenge or satirise those values.'

The research team also examined 30 'culturally significant films' in detail, using three indices to gauge their impact: 'original impact (box office, awards)', 'extended impact (DVD re-issues, restorations)', and 'wider impact (citations in other media, evidence of esteem etc.)'.

In addition, the researchers identified four main categories of cultural impact: 'censorship and notoriety' (e.g. A Clockwork Orange), 'quotations in other media such as songs, TV shows' etc., 'Zeitgeist moments' and 'cumulative impact where films have [...] contributed to long-term changes in social and cultural attitudes.'

But the report offers much more than an assessment of impact. It also re-examines the complexion of British cinema over the reference period, challenging some of the more pervasive assumptions about it (like the idea that World War II is one of the most common settings for British films in the postwar period; turns out that films set in the 'long 19th century' (1800-1914) are more abundant). The study also highlights the role of national and regional representation in British film, and looks at how the representation of ethnicity manifests itself. There's also a section on how Britishness in films is perceived outside the UK, and the contribution that public policy has made to cultural impact.

A number of things struck me while reading the report, a few of which I feel confident to share (the rest require further thought). The first is a slight sense of unease about the very idea of cultural impact. I can't quite get my head around the notion. Film doesn't sit askance from culture, and as such I wonder about the nature of 'impact'. As presented there is a sense of 'A' doing something to 'B', when in reality 'A' and 'B' are intertwined and likely to share a reciprocal relationship. What's missing in this account is how British film has been influenced by other cultural practices and artefacts.

This extends to the influence of other national cinemas on our own, because film travels widely. I did a little exercise a few months back where I looked at the film titles cited by over 40 successful British filmmakers as their key influence or all time favourite. The information came from profiles compiled and published on the Telegraph Film page, and the table of filmmakers and titles can be downloaded here.

Of the 43 directors, writers and producers quizzed, seven gave a British film as their key inspiration. Nearly as many (six) cited a French film. And, unsurprisingly, the majority (22 in total) offered up a US movie, including recent Academy Award winner Danny Boyle (who listed John Carpenter's The Thing [1983]).

Finally, the absence of audience reception analysis is also an issue, which the authors acknowledge. As culture is lived experience, and not simply the sum of all that is recorded either on the page, canvas, music sheet, celluloid/hard drive etc., any account of impact has to examine how we make meaning out of sensory stimulation. How does our sense of 'Britishness' inflect our reading of film, and vice versa? As this is likely to be grounded in our everyday experience of living in Britain (or as outsiders spectating from afar) we should be looking to cultural anthropologists for such insights. As the UK Film Council is unlikely to fund such research, will the academic community step up to the plate? I hope so.

Indie film value chain reaction

2009-06-18T20:48:20+01:00

A slightly unorthodox post, this one. I want to draw attention to the comments generated by the earlier post about Peter Bloore’s independent film value chain paper. In writing the paper (which was published on the UK Film Council's web site a few weeks back), Peter hoped to spark discussion of the issues raised. The post is already one of the most widely read to appear on this blog, and some readers have seen fit to comment, including Peter himself. If you’re interested and have not already clocked the discussion you can revisit it here (feel free to join in- the more the merrier).

Readers of the earlier post will recall that one of the ideas advanced in the paper is that different players add value to a film during its life cycle. Bloore’s model includes film critics as players in the ‘consumption’ link of the chain, and I was intrigued to find a new online service has been launched in the US that quantifies the critical reception of movies, thereby shedding fresh light on this process.

MovieReviewIntelligence.com, launched earlier this year by David Gross (who has 25 years of movie marketing experience at 20th Century Fox, National Research Group, Walt Disney Studios, MGM/UA and HBO), analyses critical notices in 65 US and Toronto publications and broadcasts.

The result is a suite of quantitative and qualitative information describing how positive the reviews are for a given title, the degree of variance among that title’s reviews, the coverage, volume, and length of those reviews, along with an estimate of the dollar value the reviews would be worth if their print space and airtime were bought like advertising.

In other words, the service provides ways to quantify various aspects of the value added by film critics during the consumption stage. The site explains the methods used in some detail, and the results are very accessible once you become accustomed to the format. Best of all, the service is free and I understand the company has plans to extend coverage to reviews in UK-based publications in future, which is a very welcome prospect.

Digital Britain

2009-06-16T22:15:38+01:00

Today saw publication of Lord Carter’s long-awaited white paper expounding the government’s ambition for the UK to become ‘one of the world’s leading digital knowledge economies’.

By way of a quick digression, the Digital Britain final report comes a week after Ofcom published research exploring access to the internet at home, which found that 70% of people aged 15+ have an internet connection where they live (Accessing the internet at home: A quantitative and qualitative study among people without the internet at home by Ipsos Mori).

Yet of those without access, 43% ‘would remain disconnected even if they were given a free PC and broadband connection’. These are the ‘self excluded’, who ‘tend to be older and retired and 61% have never used a computer’. Around another 30% say they’d like to get connected but cannot afford to do so (a group the report refers to as ‘the financially/resource excluded’).

Clearly the vision outlined in Digital Britain has a job and half to get the self-excluded online, and to ensure that no-one is prevented from participation in the 'digital future' by a lack of resources. "Broadband is becoming increasingly important to people's ability to participate in the economy and society," notes Ofcom's market development partner Peter Phillips. "The report shows that some creativity will be required if we wish to capture the imaginations of those who have yet to engage with the benefits the internet may bring."

Returning to the final Digital Britain white paper, I’ve barely managed to scratch the surface of the document. A thorough read through will have to wait until the weekend. But courtesy of the executive summary and the word find feature in my PDF reader (digital literacy in action...) I’ve been able to glean some snippets of interest from a film perspective.

First up, piracy. The UK Film Council has welcomed the ‘aggressive target of a 70% reduction in piracy over a year’ outlined in the report. But this is not strictly accurate. The report sets out plans for a reduction in unauthorised file sharing activity by at least 70% of those people notified by ISPs. The reduction in file sharing activity overall may be more or less than 70% as a result of this, as individuals will invariably be responsible for different levels of activity.

The white paper goes on to state that if the target of 70% is not met after one year, Ofcom will be empowered to ensure that ISPs take tougher action, like ‘blocking’, ‘capping’, ‘bandwidth shaping’, ‘content identification and filtering’. Use of thumb screws and water boarding were allegedly discarded in an earlier draft of the report.

Second, the white paper calls for examination of the case for tax relief ‘to promote the sustainable production for online or physical sale of culturally British video games’. This issues from the idea that video games ‘may in future have a cultural relevance to rival that of film.’

Maybe I’m getting old and out of touch (or maybe I’m just biased), but this sounds like a load of rot. Be that as it may, the idea of pegging video game tax relief to some sort of cultural test would put it on a par with the film tax credit currently available. So lawyers and accountants may well be big winners in Digital Britain. Nice to know some things never change, even in the white heat of technology.

Montage: Home entertainment market; Film in Turkey; Spanish film sales; Bradford city of film

2009-06-16T10:10:55+01:00

Here’s a selection of blog-worthy items culled from the news media over the last couple of weeks:

Writing in The Financial Times, Matthew Garrahan reports new data from Screen Digest that show a decline in global home entertainment sales, which fell by more than $2.6 billion in 2008. Total revenues from DVD and Blu-ray rentals and sales stood at $26.4 billion in 2008. Revenues from DVD (which accounted for two-thirds of the total) fell by 4.8%.

Although sales of Blu-ray media saw a fourfold increase to $482m last year, the format has not seen nearly enough growth to counteract the decline in DVD sales.

Helen Davis Jayalath, senior analyst at Screen Digest, told the FT, “we expect Blu-ray to account for 6.9% of international video spending this year – assuming there is strong promotional activity [by the studios]. However, despite consumers’ interest in the high-definition format and demand for packaged media, the current challenging economic climate means that we don’t expect Blu-ray to be driving even minimal sector growth until 2010.”

Staying with the FT, Pelin Turgut has contributed an interesting piece on the state of play in the Turkish film business, where production levels have risen from 17 films in 2004 to 70 last year. Total box office gross stood at $225 million in 2008, and Turkish films had a market share of 60%, up from 12% in 2004, despite accounting for only 18% of all releases. Turgut quotes Adnan Akdemir, chief executive of AFM Cinemas, Turkey’s largest exhibitor, who notes that international sales are thriving and can expect further growth in countries outside Europe:

“Turkey’s export market isn’t Europe. On a mass scale, my expectation is that the next step is to start exporting films to countries with similar cultural backgrounds, like parts of the Balkans, Central Asia, Russia and the Middle East. Not India, nor Italy. The stories, the background, the way movies look – these need to be culturally applicable.”

While on this subject, figures released by FAPAE, the Spanish Federation of Audiovisual Producers, reveal the strength of Spanish film sales internationally. Sergio Ríos Pérez, writing for Cineuropa.net, reports 72 Spanish productions and co-productions were released in 17 foreign territories in 2008, generating a combined box office gross of €132 million. The most widely distributed title was The Orphanage (in 19 countries), followed by [REC] (14) and Vicky Cristina Barcelona (9).

Overall, Spanish films performed best in France, with box office gross totalling €61.15 million, followed by the US and Canada (€18.92 million), Germany (€13.73 million) and Mexico (€13.57 million).

...And finally, I can’t finish without congratulating Bradford for becoming the first ever UNESCO City of Film. By 'eck!

Piracy data mashup thingy

2009-06-13T15:09:31+01:00

Last week I came across the guardian.co.uk’s Data Store for the first time (along with its companion Data Blog). If you haven’t visited I can recommend it as a splendid use of the Scott Trust’s money. It’s free to you and me.

The idea is simple enough. Using web 2.0 technology, guardian.co.uk aims to make ‘important data more accessible to people’, by publishing facts and figures from publicly available data sources, and encouraging users to analyse, re-interpret and share the results. The site even invites you to mashup the data, which as far as I can tell is a bit like a fry up but with more potato and a lot less saturated fat.

Now if truth be told, I don’t have a statistical bone in my body (unless, of course, you count my digits). Nonetheless I find this a really exciting development. There’s even a Guardian Data Talk Group, ‘to discuss data, tools, formats, standards, how to use the data The Guardian publishes, where to get it, etc.’. Judging by the archive, the Group hasn’t seen that much activity since it came online in late February, but it’s good to know it’s there should the need ever arise. I’ll certainly be chipping in.

If you’re wondering what any of this has to do with the usual film-related themes of BPR posts, I only came across the Data Store by chance while chasing a link to Charles Arthur’s technology blog post about music piracy, in which he uses Data Store numbers to advance the idea that file sharing is not cannibalising music sales to the extent claimed by the music industry.

Arthur contends the decline in music revenues since 1999 has been driven by people switching their spending to other forms of entertainment, notably video games and DVDs. It’s a plausible idea, although as presented it remains only a correlation that may in reality be no more substantial than the view he seeks to challenge. (What if people are spending more on video games because they can get their music for free?). But I think we should welcome the fact these issues are being raised and debated within the context of a growing community of data sharers and mashup artists (now there’s an image to conjure with). So three cheers for guardian.co.uk.

All this has set me thinking that it would be great if all public agencies made their data available like this, actively encouraging users to analyse and share results in interesting and novel ways, rather than issuing statistics in static publications and news releases. Even if they don’t have the web 2.0 infrastructure to do it themselves, perhaps public data owners should donate their holdings to the Data Store, or equivalents. This would deliver genuine public value, and the quid pro quo is that data owners may even learn something new about the information they hold, if enough people run inspired and innovative analyses.

Anyone who has ever visited the lamentably labyrinthine and obstructive web site operated by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) surely must agree that a bit of community datasourcing (crowdsourcing for anoraks like me) has got to be an improvement. The Data Store has left me hungry for more.

Pie chart and mashup, anyone?