Plain old...data. I like data. You should, too. Let’s spread the word. The government just gave us a whole bunch of it and they’re giving us more soon.

This is President Obama making good on some of his promised government transparency. In March, he named Vivek Kundra the nation’s Chief Information Officer. You can read about his work, along with that of Beth Noveck, Deputy Chief Technology Officer for Open Government here.

The good news is that at the end of May, amidst the sturm and drang of all the impossibly difficult issues these days, and without much of a media spotlight, Kundra, Noveck and the Obama administration unveiled data.gov.

What’s the big deal?

Well it’s not big yet – they’ve only just begun with 50 data feeds. But as a May 25th New York Times editorial says, this month (June) there should be 240,000 additional ones, with more on the way.

Firstly, it’s our data. We, the taxpayers – we own it. A lot of the stuff that the entire constellation of government agencies collect and organize – from the big ones, like the DoD (Department of Defense), the CDC (Centers for Disease Control) and the FBI (um, you know that one) down to the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is now or will soon be hooked up.

And secondly, the sky’s not even the limit for the type of data and its uses. There’s good stuff out there. Information that was difficult if not impossible to find before should now become easier to not only find, but also use. Researchers, scientists rejoice! Home buyers wary of earthquakes and faults, take heed. Weather shoppers, take heart! And techno geeks in general, well...geek on.

They’ve made this web-based data aggregation site compatible for programmers and developers to create widgets for embedding into websites or applications, iPhones or TVs, enabling all sorts of fascinating things.

Listen to Vivek Kundra himself on a great ‘All Things Considered’ NPR story that aired May 29th.

Here’s a tiny example: I could take my love of meteorology and build my own personal webpage for local weather by plugging into the National Weather Service’s various feeds and building an interface that will update itself automatically, complete with maps, radar, temperatures, precipitation, alarms, yada yada yada. Their KML/KMZ files look great when they open on Google Earth. (See below for some recent precipitation/marine layer radar images over San Diego and Coronado). I can fly in or out of my block, town or state, tracking any kind of weather I want. You had to pay professional fees to AccuWeather, Inc. to get close to doing that before – and I’m not sure it’s as customizable. This is much better than what’s available on current websites, the weather channel or those new Digital TV between-station channels.