Tim O'Reilly — Irish Businessman born on June 06, 1954,

Tim O'Reilly is the founder of O'Reilly Media. He popularized the terms open source and Web 2.0... (wikipedia)

Why did Google, for example, recently decide to offer free 411 service? I haven't talked to people at Google, but it's pretty clear to me why. It's because of speech recognition. It has nothing to do with 411 service: it has to do with getting a database of voices, so they don't have to license speech technology from Nuance or someone else.
I like to think that even if we make some really bad choices and go down some bad paths, we'll eventually emerge from it.
We're entering a new world in which data may be more important than software.
What new technology does is create new opportunities to do a job that customers want done.
This whole idea of visibility by the public creates a pretty powerful lever. In the new transparency era, you are able to make change you would otherwise have difficulty making. It's no longer possible for somebody just to bury the problem. It's the reason why things like WikiLeaks are important.