Company

Hearst Corporation: Hearst Corp vs Hearst Communications

2008-09-03T19:34:58.0012Z

Too many don't get the difference between subsidiaries and parent companies, even here at work. Or between divisions/brands and subsidiaries. Ah, the fun of corporate hierarchies!

Hearst Corporation: Hearst Corp vs Hearst Communications

2008-09-03T17:51:45.0012Z

I say go for it. Create the topic for Hearst Communications, and add it as a subsidiary to Hearst Corp. The WP articles for companies frequently fail to clearly distinguish between companies and subsidiaries, but since the article is primarily about Hearst Corp., I think just creating fresh topic for Hearst Comm. will work fine.

Hearst Corporation: Hearst Corp vs Hearst Communications

2008-09-03T16:33:27.0017Z

This wiki topic is titled Hearst Corporation however the text references Hearst Communications Inc.

Hearst Corp has many subsidiaries that are not directly related to Hearst Communications, like Hearst Broadcasting, The National Magazine Company, etc.

Therefore, I think Hearst Corp and Hearst Communications Inc should be two separate topics.

Metallgesellschaft: Note

2008-08-28T20:45:44.0012Z

Ah, crap, I forgot to do that last night. So easily distracted :)

Thanks!

Metallgesellschaft: Note

2008-08-28T17:27:02.0000Z

I've flagged them for merge, and added Metallgesellchaft as a former name of GEA Group.

Metallgesellschaft: Note

2008-08-28T01:41:08.0012Z

yeah, you're right. I guess I thought maybe there was a reason wiki had a separate topic for it, not being intimately familiar with the history. But based on the website it does seem like they should be the same topic.

The Linde Group: Linde Group & Linde AG

2008-08-27T21:12:02.0017Z

These two topics are for the same company (legal name is Linde AG). The wiki for Linde AG now redirects to the Linde Group topic.

Metallgesellschaft: Note

2008-08-27T20:37:51.0012Z

Company histories give me the biggest headache! According to their history, though, Metallgesellschaft acquired (the original) GEA in 1999, changed its name to MB Technologies in 2000, and then changed its name again to GEA Group Aktiengesellschaft. So arguably, these two topics are really about the same company, and should be merged.

Metallgesellschaft: Note

2008-08-27T20:21:25.0005Z

Metallgesellschaft doesn't exactly exist anymore and so the parent isn't technically GEA Group, but I put that in there so we can see the linkage of the two companies (see history here: http://www.geagroup.com/en/unternehmen/chronik.html).

Lotus Cars: discussion about opel speedster

2008-08-22T05:44:54.0018Z

this is a discussion about the opel speedster.

all elises are slower..

Bayer Industry Services: Renamed Currenta

2008-08-21T19:49:15.0017Z

Looks like Bayer Industry Services was renamed to Currenta on Jan 1 2008.

BMW: BMW manufacturer vs. automobile or motorcycle make

2008-08-19T23:42:55.0012Z

Ah, right, separating the make from the company. I get it now. And it makes a lot of sense.

BMW: BMW vs BMW Group

2008-08-19T21:43:00.0012Z

This makes sense to me. The "Make" type doesn't really belong here; the brands can be brought in via the Automobile Company/Makes property. (And it looks like we actually need a date-mediator on the Makes property, since MINI and Land Rover have been makes of different companies over the years.

BMW: BMW manufacturer vs. automobile or motorcycle make

2008-08-19T21:37:56.0012Z

I agree with Ed -- the topic he links to ("BMW") should be reserved for the makes (I don't know whether the automobile and motorcycle makes should be different topics), and this topic should be reserved for whichever part of the BMW Group it corresponds to. But the two, company and make, should not use the same types.

BMW: BMW vs BMW Group

2008-08-19T19:15:52.0012Z

I'm sorry, I checked my source again and there is a subsidiary for Rolls-Royce Motor Cars GmbH in Germany and Rolls-Royce Motor Cars Ltd in England.

However, I think it is safe to say that MINI, Rolls-Royce and BMW are brands of the company.

Actual legal subsidiaries are often a totally different thing. For BMW's "principal subsidiaries", you can check their Annual Report.

BMW: BMW manufacturer vs. automobile or motorcycle make

2008-08-19T19:08:38.0012Z

This topic appears to be for the parent company Bayerische Motoren Werke AG, so we need to make sure the integrity of the company remains if we break it up.

BMW: BMW vs BMW Group

2008-08-19T19:06:49.0012Z

Bayerische Motoren Werke AG is the parent company and it has many BMW subsidiaries (like BMW Japan Corp, BMW Canada Inc).

Rolls Royce is a brand, not a subsidiary (and it is not to be confused with the Rolls-Royce Group Plc!). Mini is also a brand, not a subsidiary.

GreenFuel Technologies Corporation: Please Merge

2008-08-13T17:17:17.0017Z

These are the same company.

Yale University: yale college and yale university?

2008-07-24T14:54:09.0000Z

Wikipedia tends to classify by the broadest institution, so there are a lot of actors associated with Yale University instead of the drama school. I think it's fine that we start with the lower-precision classification and as data becomes available, replace it with the more specific.

Apple Inc.: What will be the next bullet of Apple Inc.

2008-07-24T14:32:34.0012Z

this is the interesting questions, I also wondering what would be the next bullet of Apple

Apple Inc.: What will be the next bullet of Apple Inc.

2008-07-24T07:38:50.0017Z

Apple have bring 3G iphone to the market, any idea about what's the next bullet of Apple

Company: Shareholders are not necessarily Person

2008-07-02T18:08:54.0012Z

Yeah, I think that makes sense. I had made it person originally cause I was pulling out the individual's SEC filings. In addition to companies, funds and endowments can be shareholders.

Company: Shareholders are not necessarily Person

2008-06-30T12:36:21.0005Z

Another company can also be a major shareholder.

Could the type of 'Major Shareholder' be changed to a type of 'Shareholder', rather than 'Person'?

Company: Companies versus Divisions

2008-06-03T22:11:07.0007Z

I agree with you, there needs to be a company_division type, with a parent company.

Company: Companies versus Divisions

2008-05-31T17:56:36.0014Z

I'm new here, so excuse me if I'm being ignorant.

I would like a distinction between companies and divisions of companies. For instance, if I search for "Boeing", I get " Boeing Integrated Defense Systems" and " Boeing Commercial Airplanes" in addition to the actualy company itself. Well, these aren't subsidiaries, they're just divisions of the same company. They are not seperate legal entities. It seems to me that these should be classified as "divisions of companies", not "companies" themselves. Another example (among many others) is Lockheed Martin.

Is there a way to query strictly for just the actual companies that I'm not aware of?
That is really what I'm after.

Thanks,

acm

Company: Add CEO property

2008-05-28T17:51:43.0007Z

The problem I think, isn't from the company side, but rather from the person side. The employment history property was intended to read like a resume. This should include tenures as CEO or any other executive-level employment.

We could choose to denormalize and add an "Executive managers" or "Senior managers" property to the company type, but there would have to be some kind of autonomous process ensuring that this denormalization is maintained in both properties.

At some point, we may have "synthetic" properties that would allow these properties to be created from a query. That is, the "executive managers" property would be a query that would show employees of that company with a preset collection of job titles. Such synthetic properties would be a way of pushing common patterns up into freebase so it doesn't have to be maintained in client code.

For now, however, I think we should keep the structure as-is.

Company: Add CEO property

2008-05-27T21:38:08.0007Z

Does it really make sense to duplicate the information?

Also, a couple of other points

- Not every company has a CEO. Some have several CEOs of different divisions, etc.

- CFO is also a very important position, given that they have to sign off on SEC statements.

- "Employees" is part of the "Employer" type, not "Company". Which schema would apply to upper management?

Maybe this is more of a UI issue? I can't look at the page and filter to just the position I'm interested in.

The only other thing I can think of is to separate "management" from "employees" for companies, or something like that.

Company: Add CEO property

2008-05-27T21:31:56.0007Z

This is an interesting idea; we have done similar things elsewhere (in some of the sports, teams have both current and historical rosters, for example). My main question about it is what the expected type would be. "Employees" links to the Person type, through the property "Employment history". But very few people (comparatively) have been heads of companies, so we would either need a "head of company" type or a "companies headed" property on Person. (We would hopefully find better names for the type and property if we did this.)

Company: Add CEO property

2008-05-23T20:11:38.0005Z

The head of a company can get lost in among the board members or employees, but seems siginificant enough to warrant its own property.

Yale University: yale college and yale university?

2008-03-27T22:13:29.0017Z

Or, I suppose you could argue that everyone should be linked to the University itself, but I think that's less useful in the long run (if I'm interested in directors who went to the Yale School of Drama, I'd rather query that than to have to filter Yale Univ. grads by degree [MFA] and field of study [directing, drama, acting, etc.]).

Yale University: yale college and yale university?

2008-03-27T22:10:34.0022Z

It does complicate queries, it's true. Ideally everyone would be linked to the school they graduated from. That said, it's useful to be able to say that someone graduated from Yale University, even if you don't know which school they attended.

Yale University: yale college and yale university?

2008-03-27T21:26:57.0012Z

This is the case, although it complicates queries. Also, many alumni are linked to the university even though they attended Yale College.

BMW: BMW vs BMW Group

2008-03-17T18:25:01.0007Z

Having looked at BMW Group's website, I'm even more confused. How do we distinguish a subsidiary company from a brand? Is BMW actually a subsidiary company of BMW Group, or just a brand manufactured by them? It's not actually clear from their site whether Rolls Royce is a subsidiary company either -- the company history just says that BMW bought the rights to the name (which might make it a business asset in our model?). MINI was aquired when BMW bought the Rover Group (so Rover Group might have been a subsidiary), but BMW Group sold off the other brands that came with it (Land Rover, MG), so I have no idea what the current status of MINI is, either. I think that I've only succeeded in muddyingt the waters, unfortunately.

BMW: BMW vs BMW Group

2008-03-14T22:37:02.0005Z

This entry is a little confusing - because it makes it sound like BMW is the parent company of Mini and Rolls Royce. Instead, there should be a new entry for BMW Group (www.bmwgroup.com) -- the parent company of BMW, Mini, and Rolls Royce.

Company: Add "Offering" (products, services, ...)

2008-03-09T13:54:47.0005Z

Every company offers products / services, commonly known in marketingspeak as the offering of a company.

Yale University: yale college and yale university?

2008-02-14T23:16:00.0007Z

As near as I can tell, Yale College is the undergraduate college of Yale University, and should therefore be made a constituent school of Yale, along with Yale Law School, Yale School of Drama, etc., which I've now done.

Yale University: yale college and yale university?

2008-02-14T21:56:01.0012Z

shouldn't these two be merged?

-chris

BMW: BMW manufacturer vs. automobile or motorcycle make

2008-01-26T18:55:45.0012Z

I suggest that this topic gets reserved for the Manufacturer, BMW motorcycles is used for Motorcycle make, and other similar topics are used for Automobile make, etc.

Company: Dated money values

2008-01-22T16:20:07.0007Z

Yep, revenue, operating income and net income should be dated money values and that's coming up in the next round of schema changes!

Company: Dated money values

2008-01-22T06:42:02.0005Z

Shouldn't Revenue and Operating income be "Dated money values" instead of "Money values" because these values are summarized by fiscal quarter?

Company: Ownership

2008-01-06T01:44:47.0007Z

I agree that "owner" may be a better root property. It could just exist as a higher order type that is subset into the various markets. There are properties of owners that are universal. For example, they could have a property of "Venture funded companies" with a CVT that lists % ownership and date. Groupings at this level could be very useful for tracking trends in business strategies.

Company: Ownership

2008-01-05T23:00:22.0007Z

Part of the issue is that when you're looking at media ownership, it really does help to see that News Corp owns Fox AND the New York Post AND satellites AND sports teams etc at the same time -- that gives you a sense of whether they have monopolies in particular markets, vertical monopolies over content, etc. And a person might well want to look at all properties in which News Corp has an over 50% interest, for example. But maybe it would be just as easy to add "percent ownership" to "television channels owned" and to "websites owned" and then do a search for ">50% percent ownership in t.c.owned AND >50% percent ownership in w.s.owned"?

If someone wants to see just the TV channels, mightn't it be better to let them narrow "owner" down only to results which are of type "TV channel"?

I think what I am trying to address is that the relationship "owner" does have properties of its own, and some of them may be near-universal -- you can own 50% of a house, 50% of a joint venture, 50% of a piece of land, 50% of rights to a copyrighted work?... Now I'm finding myself wondering what a lawyer would say about this...

Company: Ownership

2008-01-05T21:45:20.0000Z

Hrm, I've got partial answers for both of your points.

1) One reason we have those types like that, rather than a general "owner of stuff" type, is for the reverse properties. "Television channel owner" will have a reverse property of "television channels owned", which is more useful -- for most everyday purposes -- than one that says "stuff owned" if you know what I mean. Though I agree it does make it hard to see who owns eg. television channels *and* aircraft *and* rare stamps.

2) There's a type for "venture funded company" for what it's worth, which provides properties for eg. rounds of investment, who's invested, etc. Metaweb itself is typed as this if you want to take a look.

Perhaps a useful thing at this point would be for you to think about a use case for what you're trying to do, rather than thinking in the abstract. What eventual applications do you foresee for this ownership data, and what sort of information do you hope to extract and in what form?

Company: Ownership

2008-01-05T20:54:39.0012Z

(I'm posting this here rather than under various "x owned" type discussions because it strikes me as an issue that impacts the "company" type across industries and across entities owned...)

I'm interested in media ownership, and I've been scanning the various types in this domain and wondering if they should maybe be done a slightly different way. Two possible issues:

1) Should "website owner," "television channel owner," "venture investors," etc really be different types, or is there some way to abstract "ownership" into a single type which might be useful across categories -- at the very least, across the range of company ownership? I saw sort of a similar discussion over in architecture which makes me wonder how broadly this abstraction could be expanded.

2) How can we represent the nature of ownership better? When I was working for nonprofits which were attempting to document media ownership for anti-monopoly purposes, we wanted information on how much of a stake a company had in a particular venture; we kept track of percentages. The difference between venture investment and ownership already does some work towards documenting different types of investment. I'm wondering, though, if better nuance could be captured if there was a property of "ownership" types which said "this is a venture" or "this is a wholly-owned subsidiary" rather than making those types in and of themselves.

Company: Suggested properties for Company of State/Provincial and Federal Incorporation Numbers

2007-11-10T22:21:50.0007Z

I believe the Corporation number is the significant, unique number. The BN number does not appear to be referenced in the online help, so I have no idea what it refers to.

Company: Company should have (new) Sector type

2007-10-22T22:04:00.0007Z

Jonathan, check out the discussion on the Industry type. Would the NACE, NAICS, and SIC categorizations do what you want?

Remember that we don’t necessarily need the industry and sector to be explicit, if we can imply the industry from the sector.

Company: Financial metrics should be tied to a time period

2007-10-22T17:49:42.0007Z

There actually is a date property on the monetary value for these properties, but unfortunately, you have to view the topic page for the value itself to add it. I.e., if you mouse-over the value in the property list, click the little arrow that appears, and select "view" from the menu. But this is less than ideal. I'll open a bug to change the expected type to one where the date is more easily visible. (This will require data migration, so it may take some time to implement this.)

Company: Financial metrics should be tied to a time period

2007-10-20T17:18:39.0007Z

I agree. Moreover, not only does making fields such as incomes and revenues a Dated Currency (a type that does not currently exist) make such numbers meaningful, but it makes possible queries that compute period-to-period growth in those figures. So someone could query all companies with large growth in profit (though profit isn't yet a property of a company!) over the last two years.

Company: Company should have (new) Sector type

2007-10-20T17:05:59.0012Z

Currently Companies have only an Industry. I propose the creation of a new Sector type, and modification of the Company type to have both Industry and Sector types. Having both allows finer granularity in classification (e.g. the financial services sector has asset management and investment banking as two industries). This is moreover the way companies tend to be classified outside of Freebase.

That example, by the way, calls attention to the fact that there is a one-to-many mapping between sector and industry, so in fact the Sector type should itself aggregate Industry types. In that case, then, perhaps Company should just have an Industry type, with the Sector linked to the Industry type automatically via the latter's membership in the former? The issue here would be data integrity: if a Company has a Sector, then the Company shouldn't be able to have an Industry that does not belong to its Sector. I don't know how this issue is best dealt with in Freebase.

Company: Suggested properties for Company of State/Provincial and Federal Incorporation Numbers

2007-10-16T02:03:52.0007Z

There seems to be two numbers in use on that site, as in Corporation #4340159 BN #123757197RC0002

Can you provide a reference to the definitive source of Provincial & Federal numbers so we can document the new properties?