What Do You Do With 110,000 Data Sets?

The Obama Administration’s data.gov website now has 110,000 government data sets that you can access and download. So what do you do with this stuff? Well, Sunlight Labs, an open government advocacy group, is sponsoring a contest encouraging citizens (well, okay, data geeks) to come up with applications that use the data in interesting ways.

Sunlight Labs launched its contest, “Apps for America 2” a few weeks ago and got 47 submissions. It has narrowed the field down to three:

One finalist GovPulse.US, provides easy access to Federal Register entries dating back to 1994. Another finalist, ThisWeKnow.org, provides community-level data (the communities with the most toxins, highest unemployment, etc.). And the third finalist, DataMasher, allows you to select and mashup data sets and then map or rank the data.

You can vote on which of the three Apps you think should be the winner – but TODAY is the last day you can vote! Do this by going to the Sunlight Lab site, registering (to reduce the chance of ballot stuffing), and then cast your ballot. You can also leave a comment if you wish.