A couple of years ago I ran across a very unique web site that was a
database of all the major US corporations, most of the larger
non-profit groups and their boards of directors. The site interface
was graphical and interactive (maybe flash based). Anyway you could
search for a persons name or the company name to find out about their
relatoinships to other individuals and/or companies. If you searched
for a company, it would bring up their board of directors as
represented by a board table icon, with spokes going out pointing to
the individuals that comprised the board, you could then click one
board member and it would expand more spoke from that person, showing
what other boards that person may serve on. Everything you saw, you
could move by dragging, double-click and expand, or click and
collapse, and there was a feature where you could ask "show me the
shortest distance between this person and that, or between this
company and that" and if there was a relationship, it would show you
what it was; example if you wanted to find the closest link between
Exxon and General Motors it might return a graphic result that shows
Joe Smith is on Exxon's board and so is Jane Doe who also sits on GM's
board.
The site had a slight flavor of conspiracy theory, but the technology
and ability to graphically represent the relationships between
powerful US individuals and corperations was pretty amazing. I'm now
trying to find this site again with no luck. I cannot remember the
name, but if I recall it was something like "they rule" or or
something with the word powerful in it. The sites premise was that
when you look at all the major US corps, and non-profits, they are all
control by a relatively small number of powerful individuals. What is
the URL of this site? It's been driving me crazy. |
,
0 Comments
)