I was made aware of a presentation which Tim Berners-Lee gave at Ted about "linked data". Here is a link to that presentation. If you are interested in XBRL, you will definitely find this presentation interesting.
Here are two of the links mentioned in the presentation:
DBPedia: http://wiki.dbpedia.org/
Open Street Map: http://www.openstreetmap.org/
Linked data! Get out there and make it, be sure to demand it!