Polar makes terrific heart monitors. People who are fitness addicts as well as heart patients use them. Polar wants to keep their results proprietary. Users do not. Jeffery Veen runs through reasons why open data, exportable and usable is the future in a world of new publishing opportunities (say fitness blogs), google maps (exertion maps of runs) and new devices. His neat sarcasm highlights that web 2.0 ideas reach into every area of business and threaten closed business models everywhere. It's getting harder to make money the old ways.