Ever since Google acquired ITA and Metaweb, I've been thinking of other verticals where building / aggregating structured data would be valuable. Seems like many niches have already been covered:<p>- Lawyers: Avvo<p>- Doctors: Vitals<p>- Location: Yelp/Foursquare/etc<p>- Cars: Vast<p>- Pets: Vast<p>- Movies: Imdb<p>- Credit Cards: NerdWallet<p>I think it would be interesting to brainstorm some other verticals where building your own structured data could be a viable business.<p>Here are some that I'm thinking about:<p>- Colleges: It's a pain comparing which college is better vs another. Having a single structured database/model for all colleges would be great. Could extend it to comparing courses/costs/future salaries/etc.<p>- Disease: There are some companies already doing this, but I feel like it could be more open. Symptoms, cures, timelines, progression, location, etc.<p>- Soft Goods: Clothes, accessories, etc. Not sure how you'd go about creating / gathering enough structured data, but seems like there is a need.<p>What do you think are some good opportunities to apply the structured data biz model?
Household appliances - no site I know of allows you to search them based on the width, height and depth but for people who are replacing them, then that is often the first consideration - yes there are 'standard' sizes but how many houses are built to standard :) Another thing of course is when buying an oven or fridge, important consideration is capacity. I would love to be able to search for say 'show me all fridges which have a max width of 90cm and order them by capacity'. Add In price comparison and links to buy
In the UK several of the national newspapers publish university league tables - not sure if you get the same thing in the US? Might provide some inspiration for you.<p>See <a href="http://extras.timesonline.co.uk/stug/universityguide.php" rel="nofollow">http://extras.timesonline.co.uk/stug/universityguide.php</a> for an example.
Colleges breaks down when trying to turn qualitative experiences into quantitative data, I don't like how the models come out. (Doesn't mean they don't end up successful, obviously.)<p>My fave approach in the space recently has been Unigo.com, nice aggregation of user generated content to great effect.
- Books, book categories, book reviews.<p>- Wines, beers.<p>- Food ingredients and nutrition (FDA data).<p>- Public and private companies, financial data and reports.<p>- Housing data, county records.
This is a good line of thinking.<p>Disease (health) is a huge, huge industry.<p>(does Vast really do pets?)<p>More ideas: Travel, Financial Instruments (credit cards and other debt)
household grocery consumption for a zip code/town/neighborhood (or is there something out there already).<p>Would be interesting for consumers, manufacturers and stores.