DEMO: Infochimps lets users share and sell data

Data is hard to find, use and connect. Infochimps is trying to organize the world’s free and commercial data into a repository labeled by content, meaning and source.

The web site, unveiled at DEMOfall 09, lets users sell their commercial data on terms they choose and at a price they set. They can share the data for free without having to bear the burden of hosting and bandwidth charges. The Austin, Texas-based company incentivizes users to gather, maintain and curate their data. Market researchers and others who sell big reports with lots of data are likely to be primary sellers on the site.

Three founders include Dhruv Bansal, Joseph Kelly, and Flip Kromer. The company brought up examples of someone researching data on the war in Iraq. That data can be linked to reports with data on government spending in Iraq and the number of U.S. casualties.

The site’s main page has tag clouds that have popular data searches and collections. This company had just 90 seconds to talk about what it offered. But the guy’s voice was silky and smooth. He could probably sell data related to cow manure.