Dealipedia: an additional piece for the Metasocial web?
February 3rd, 2008 
The principles of transparency that inspire the Metasocial web, are not only concerned about political transparency, but also those of corporations. How many times an acquisition is announced, and it is said to be an important one for both the seller and the buyer companies, but you don’t know much, apart from the press releases, and neutered statements from the managers involved?
Dealipedia, a new website, created by Michael Robertson and his team, aims to address this, and bring to the open the details about the transactions that involve the ownership changes in companies. Investments, IPOs, mergers and acquisitions, and even bankruptcies, with the names of the people involved, whether the payments were in cash or shares, and any other detail that can be thought of.
The structure of the site is of course such that anybody can add information, or correct an existing entry, and with a Creative Commons Attribution license, reuse the data that is being collected on Dealipedia. While there is no machine-readable format for automating the extraction and mashing up of the data, Dealipedia promises to have APIs soon!