Yesterday, while Apple was all apologetic and whatnot, most did not even notice that Google made another, yes another, acquisition. This time around they purchased a company that takes data on the web and organizes it by “entity”. I was not sure what that meant, so I had to read on.
With Metaweb, you might see a bit more intellagence with Google’s search algo, but that is not all that Google got with this purchase. They got some freebies and Google lovers might be a little pumped. In addition to Metaweb, Google also got their hands on other Metaweb properties, like Freebase.
Freebase is an entity graph of people, places and things, much like that of Wikipedia. Some say they Freebase is a little more organized and, of course, it would be a great addition to Google’s Knol. Some are getting excited to see some more options that may, or may not, be added to the social network that Google is rumored to be working on.
All of this does sound to be more and more like Facebook, but it shouldn’t be a big deal to anyone even if that’s Google’s intention. They are in a position now to take over more of the web and users should be ready for something huge, like always.
The note from Google goes as follows:
In addition to our ideas for search, we’re also excited about the possibilities for Freebase, Metaweb’s free and open database of over 12 million things, including movies, books, TV shows, celebrities, locations, companies and more. Google and Metaweb plan to maintain Freebase as a free and open database for the world. Better yet, we plan to contribute to and further develop Freebase and would be delighted if other web companies use and contribute to the data. We believe that by improving Freebase, it will be a tremendous resource to make the web richer for everyone. And to the extent the web becomes a better place, this is good for webmasters and good for users.
