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What got Talis going on its Linked Data marketplace that launched in public beta in June, dubbed Kasabi? The recognition that there had to be a business model in making RDF data as easy to use as possible - from publishing it to querying it, all in a well-supported and sustainable fashion for providers and consumers alike.

The more we win, the more we want to play. Human beings are competitive animals, even when we claim not to be, and rare is the individual who doesn't take pleasure in winning. Gamblers understood this long before Bugsy Siegel broke ground in the Nevada desert. Both Las Vegas and the minds behind rewards and fidelity programs have spent decades capitalizing on the human need to win. The video game industry would vanish if it didn't continue to exploit our thirst for competition-and victory-with its aggressive approach to keeping games fresh, challenging, and in many cases, incredibly addictive. Along the same lines, social networks such as Facebook and LinkedIn have employed "gamification" to engage their constituencies, keep them coming back for more, and perpetuate their business models with new users. As these tactics are proving to be invaluable in consumer-facing applications, companies are beginning to adopt gamification strategies for nongaming business activities like employee engagement, sales force motivation, and relationship building with partners. Far from being just another entry in the buzzword lexicon, gamification is changing the way companies do business.

If you are a mobile developer, the findings of a report from framework provider Appcelerator and research firm IDC are fascinating. The Kindle Fire is, well, on fire. So, apparently, is the Barnes & Noble Nook Android tablet. Nokia and Microsoft are making headway with Windows Phone, BlackBerry continues its free fall and HTML5 has superseded everything but iOS and Android in developer interest. Freemium is becoming the standard mobile business model and with that developers are looking for tools to scale, create loyalty and enhance engagement to increase monetization. You can access the full report here. Check out our commentary and analysis below. Developers: what are your priorities and monetization strategies?

Behavior is the unknowable variable in every innovation, and it is the variable that most determines the opportunity a new business model has to evolve and take advantage of the new behavior.