Congratulations to DataSift for the $6 Million in funding!
But there is another gem in the story about their funding.
Instead Mr. Halstead looked at how companies like Amazon had disrupted server rental and came up with a plan to do the same to data analysis. “For me the technology isn’t the game changer. For me it is approaching data processing in a democratized way. There are any number of companies that will sell you data, but they will typically charge you a five-figure sum minimum.
Note the line: “For me the technology isn’t the game changer. For me it is approaching data processing in a democratized way.”
That the trick isn’t it? To approach “…semantics in a democratized way.”
Precisely what topic maps have to offer. Topic maps can capture your semantics. If and when you become interested in the semantics of others, you can map your semantics to theirs, preserving the integrity of both.
Disruptive to the top down ontology approach you ask? I suppose that is true, it is. But then democratization is always disruptive of authoritarian schemes and patterns.
The real question is: Whose semantics would you rather have? Your own or those of someone else?