At least according to Usman Haque, talking to me just over a year ago. This general idea of the value of sharing and openess was the driver for Haque’s Pachube (then Cosm, currently Xively). Now he’s taken what we decided was ‘social’ IoT the next logical step with the launch of Thingful.

It’s the same idea but this time with an emphasis on big data and an absolute focus on the value of ‘open’ data and information.

Launched last week, Thingful is being characterised as aiming to do for IoT what Google did for the Internet. Indexing sensors and making them and their accumulating open data searchable.

The idea is simple - just as the World Wide Web brought information together to be ‘mashed up’ to produce unexpected and, every now and then, highly brilliant and useful applications - so Usman is keen to promote the idea of open, public data streams, accessible by anyone, for the unintended and intended applications they create.

See our Interview with Usman Haque below.