I've wanted to do something similar except with Real Estate transaction data in the state of MA. Most residential real estate transaction data is available via

I've wanted to do something similar except with Real Estate transaction data in the state of MA. Most residential real estate transaction data is available via each counties registry of deeds website (http://www.masslandrecords.com/malr/controller http://www.masslandrecords.com/malr/controller). The challenge is much of this data is stored using proprietary systems with limited (or no) APIs and different counties use different systems. Much like with Real Estate data, the biggest hurdle with this initiative is there is no standardized convention from one city to another. With data being all over the place it makes developing a community driven data gathering platform "wicked hard". What I think would be a good starting point is define some standards so that when the ad-hoc data is transformed it follows an agreed upon convention. This approach would allow for a centralized data sharing platform to be developed making data available via all kinds of different formats(RDF,JSON, etc). tl;dr: Awesome idea but comes with some difficult challenges.