(Cross-posted from the Open House Project blog and Google Group.)

One theme running through what we're doing here, in my mind at least, is to blur the line between the explicit and the implicit, or, put differently, to make evident those things which were only implied. Effective data availability is certainly a case of this. Every time there is government information that is publicized in that satisfying-due-diligence, html, doing-as-we're-told, this-is-the-full-extent-of-our-authorization, only available in a reading room at 2:30 PM on Wednesday sort of way, well, that's an example of the implied. That data is only public by implication, since there is a significant barrier to it's effective use, reuse, access, or timely updating.

I'm loving the conversation about debate transcripts that Josh just posted about, because it's a great example of information becoming increasingly public, even though it was in plain sight all along. All public televised debates are, by their nature, quite public. The transcript or video/audio, however, has been less available, so much that the battle over their fair use continues even now. Despite this struggle, innovative presentations of this most hotly contested, most scrutinized of public appearances are popping up with increasing frequency. Josh's post took the speaking time from the NYT and calculated the statistical correlation between candidates' time speaking and their poll ranking. I just came across this tool (application?) that allows for all sorts of user-defined analysis of the debate transcript. You can see, explicitly, how many times the candidates said a term of your choice, and the text from the transcript is available right along with it. This is the sort of thing that we're lucky enough to witness developing, as long as the data that drives this sort of innovative presentation stays open and available. (more after the jump.)