"The Open Data Protocol (OData) is a web protocol for querying and updating data. OData applies web technologies such as HTTP, Atom Publishing Protocol (AtomPub) and JSON to provide access to information from a variety of applications, services, and stores."
...
"Since the Open Data Protocol is fully specified, you can implement it using any platform that supports HTTP, XML and JSON. On the .NET Framework, ADO.NET Data Services provides a framework allowing developers to create a OData services in Visual Studio 2008 SP1 as well as client libraries for .NET, Silverlight, AJAX. Client libraries are also available for PHP and Java."
http://blog.jonudell.net/2009/11/18/oda ... -friction/
Open data on the web has enormous potential value, but if we have to overcome too much data friction in order to combine it and make sense of it, we will often fail to realize that value. ODBC in its era was a terrific lubricant. I’m hoping that OData, widely implemented in software, services, and mashup environments like the just-announced Dallas, will be another.
