Revealing busimess.org

We decided to finally reveal busimess.org , a new project, which tries to make another kind of information searchable by the all users of the world wide web. For now it was nearly impossible to easily retrieve information on relations between companies. They may be accessible in publications or stock reports, but impossible to search or aggregate.

For now you can add companies and relations on busimess.org , and finally define relations between them like "owns" for companies, and "produces" for company - product relations. Once data is added, you can search for relations between objects, and display the found data in interactive SVG graphs. An example for the current relations between the german publisher "Axel Springer Verlag" (who publishes the yellow press newspaper "Bild for example) and the TV station Sat.1 :

Relation between Axel Springer Verlag and Sat.1

I personally often searched for resources on the relations between companies, to understand their involvement in a project and failed, because there was no easy way to search the different sources of these infomation. One evening, I was again searching those relations, the idea for this project was born. The knowledge about graphs , web application development and the usage of mature PHP components to develop the backend made it easier than I thought in the first place.

For the relation graphs and company charts you need a SVG enabled browser. Every modern browser supports this open vector graphics format, except Microsofts Internet Explorer. If you are still using this browser get a more decent one here, here or here.

Owners of Bild T-Online.de AG & Co KG

The development of busimess continues, and we are happy to receive feedback on busimess, either on our mailinglists , or in the bugtracker.

I added a blog category which will contain future posts on the development and progress of busimess.org, which is of course available as a RSS feed, too.