This past Friday Google has announced that it has acquired Metaweb Technologies, company which maintains an open database of things in the world. By working together with Metaweb Google aims to improve search as well as further understand queries and web pages. Google expects to be able to deliver relevant information more quickly through this partnership. The Metaweb data and semantic technology will be incorporated into the Google search engine. For instance, if you were to type ‘barack obama birthday’ into the search box, you may be able to see the answer right at the top of the page. Searching for a specific list of things like ‘events in San Jose’ could also show specific results of events and the dates when they are taking place.
Metaweb allows even more complex searches to be made, achieving better, more personalized results. In addition to that Google is also pretty enthusiastic about Freebase, a free and open database that includes over 12 million movies, books, tv shows, locations and much more. The two companies have announced their intention to keep freebase free for the world to take advantage of, as well as further contribute to the database. They are also hoping that more users as well as institutions will use and contribute to freebase. With more people contributing, the database is only bound to become larger and more interesting. Google already has an open database of its own called Google Base, and we’ve yet to see whether Google Base and Freebase will merge or remain separate.
