Opinion: Obama’s CIO Kundra says the UK’s Data.gov is groovy like the Beatles, or something

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

If the Beatles are bigger than Jesus, as John Lennon claimed in 1966, then is Data.gov bigger than both of them?

No, but the Beatles were apparently the best comparison to the UK’s new Internet project that White House Chief Information Officer Vivek Kundra could come up with.

To mark the launch of Britain’s own version of Data.gov -- the website that makes various national statistics available in standard computer formats -- Kundra published a post on the White House blog titled ‘They Gave Us The Beatles, We Gave Them Data.gov.’

‘The Federal Government does not have a monopoly on the best ideas,’ Kundra writes. ‘We are pleased to see that other governments share the administration’s philosophy that data availability will help change how government operates and empower citizens to participate in making government services more effective, accessible and transparent.’

You know, like the Beatles.

Canada, can you please launch your own version of Data.gov, so Kundra can sarcastically say, ‘They gave us Celine Dion (really, thanks a lot for that one) .....’

-- Mark Milian

Come together (right now!) and click here to receive Twitter alerts of each new Ticket item. Or follow us @latimestot. You can also go to our new Facebook fan page here.

CKramer via Flickr