Today my company, Immuexa, formally begins "Project Realize", our own attempt to bring Semantic Web goodness to everyone. Our plan is to develop and market two software products that share the same purpose: helping people organize, explore, and share their digital memories. Tidepool™ (formerly Akimbo and Waveplace) is a desktop application that can be run on any computer. Storymill™ is a web application that's used through a web browser. Both do much the same thing -- they're similar but separate interfaces to the same shared functionality and codebase.

Each product will play to the strengths of its interface. Tidepool, the desktop application, is especially suited to graphical browsing, hardware integration, and other tasks requiring quick interaction with the user. Storymill, the web application, will leverage the lightweight, long-distance, interconnected power of the Web, allowing anyone to use it from any computer with an Internet connection and a browser.

Both products share more than their codebase; they're also designed to work seamlessly together. Tidepool will be the preferred way to browse and publish shared Storymill memories. Storymill can serve as a central hub for communities of Tidepool users. Data shared between the two will be represented using RDF. We intend to integrate with existing ontologies so our data can be used by everyone.

Project Realize currently has a six-month budget, with nine developers contributing. We plan to release our first glimpse release on March 21st, three months from now. We're scheduled to release selling version on June 21st. While this schedule is ambitious, we're already ahead of the game because we're reworking existing code from several previous projects, including a photo program originally called StoryBot, which was started much earlier.

From time to time, I'll write about the project as it progresses. I'm of course looking for feedback and encouragement, but I hope to be useful to the semweb community by sharing our in-house experience.

I'd also like to wish everyone a Happy Solstice! See ya next winter :)