Structured Dynamics LLC is Dedicated to Delivering the Structured Web and Linked Data
Fred Giasson and I are pleased to announce our new venture, Structured Dynamics LLC. Structured Dynamics springboards from our previous company, Zitgist, and simplifies and focuses our structured Web and linked data services. We are pleased to begin operations with major clients in hand and exciting prospects for helping to make major aspects of the semantic Web a reality in 2009.
The astute observer may have noticed the transition to Structured Dynamics occurring in the background over the past month or so. But, securing start-up contracts and getting all of the paperwork niceties in place has caused us to delay a formal announcement until the symbolic beginning of a New Year and new administrations (on many fronts!).
Structured Dynamics (SD) kicks off with myself as CEO and Fred as CTO and chief programmer. BTW, we are actively looking to hire the right developers with experience in the semantic Web, linked data, PHP, Python, Virtuoso or Drupal; please contact Fred if you think your fit is great.
Structured Dynamics’ Focus and Services
Structured Dynamics is dedicated to assist enterprises and non-profit organizations and projects to adopt Web-accessible and interoperable data. The basic premise is that the data itself becomes the application: by virtue of its structure, information can be combined, inferred, analyzed, filtered by tag or facet, queried, searched, reported, templated or visualized. A suite of Web services provides these capabilities, generalized to be driven by the structure of the input data itself.
Structured Dynamics supports both open and proprietary data, including the extraction of structure from fully structured data (RDF), from conventional structured data (such as relational databases), from unstructured (text) data, and from semi-structured (metadata, tags and mark-up) sources. SD’s professional services include:
- Linked data training and education
- Project evaluation and planning
- Legacy data conversions
- Vocabulary (ontology) development and mapping
- Named entity (instance) dictionary creation
- Information extraction, and
- Architectural design, development and deployment assistance.
Structured Dynamics is platform- and language-neutral, though all of our services are based on open source software. Fred and I have been advocates of linked data done right as our frequent and oft-cited blog posts attest.
A Smooth Transition for UMBEL, BIBO, Other Projects
Our ongoing open source ontology efforts for UMBEL, BIBO (the Bibliographic Ontology) and MO (Music Ontology) will continue without interruption. Community members will not notice any change in activity level or support. Structured Dynamics will continue to support Fred’s and my time as editors of these ontologies, and SD will continue to host the ontologies’ Web sites and documentation and support activities.
As central aspects of Structured Dynamics’ services, expect to see us develop and support still further useful ontologies for the benefit of the open marketplace.
Zitgist Remains a Sandbox
Though Zitgist has ceased as an operating company, zitgist.com remains as a sandbox to host its prior services including UMBEL Web services and the DataViewer. Zitgist’s other Web properties of Ping the Semantic Web and Talk Digger are also now operated and supported jointly by OpenLink Software and Structured Dynamics.
Fred and I are tremendously grateful to OpenLink Software and Kingsley Idehen for early incubation support. Structured Dynamics retains a close partnership with OpenLink and plans to support and utilize the Virtuoso framework frequently in our services. We are further excited to be able to support and recommend best-of-breed choices to our customers whatever their circumstance.
Entering the New Year with a Sense of Excitement
Pundits first cited 2008 as the year of breakthrough for the semantic Web; many more are now doing so for 2009. Clearly, the transition to commercial readiness and deployment is underway.
The dialog is naturally shifting from one taking place solely within the community to outreach to the marketplace. Our language needs to become less jargon-filled and technical to one of solutions and benefits. Pragmatism and piecing together cost-effective, end-to-end solutions will take precedence over tools and arcane arguments. It is now time to get the job done.
The past decade has produced ready to deploy standards and best practices. The building blocks for comprehensive, enterprise-capable and -scalable solutions now exist. Fred and I look forward with much excitement to hopefully be some of the key agents in helping to make this maturation and change come about.
We enter the New Year with much optimism and hope. We wish all of you individually — and the global commons collectively — a much improved and more prosperous 2009! Now, let’s kick some A and have some fun!
