Google Acquires Metaweb (Freebase)

Google decides to act quickly and openly step into semantic technology - it acquires Metaweb , the owner of  Freebase , the open knowledgebase. Having this in consideration, it is evident that they are striking back Facebook and their OpenGraph API .It seems like the clash of the web titans has begun...

The Empire Strikes Back

Google has been ignoring Semantic Web long enough. They probably didn't take competition seriously and they didn't feel like their throne on the Web is endangered. But Google could not ignore Semantics any more. Algorithms must be changed. The system evolves, and if they do not want to perform the change, others gladly will. Shortly after Facebook presented their OpenGraph API and their new social bookmarking approach which allows them to build semantically annotated profiles of each of us, Google decides to grab Freebase under its hood. I have been studying Freebase before and according to my opinion, it has the potential of being one of the few data hubs that in future will serve for interconnection of heterogeneous systems. For example, if  two systems refer to same objects, but they describe them differently, by connecting their entities to a single entity on Freebase, the Web will be aware that those two entities are in fact the same, despite their different description. Freebase and DbPedia promise to be the new convention of describing resources in the Web. Googlers are smart, now they will play major role within linking data around the Web - ensuring their importance in this new field.

But will Google utilize this acquiring for search enhancements ? Will they make substantial changes to their keyword search-based tool ? Do Googlers feel threatened ? We are not sure yet.

One thing is for certain. Since large companies start to adopt Semantic Web technologies... it is evident that soon it will become the mainstream. The Semantic Web has waited long enough...