Millennium Portfolio Company Metaweb Acquired by Google
Below are two articles discussing the acquisition.
Google Acquires Metaweb To Make Search Smarter
TechCrunch - July 16, 2010
By Leena Rao
Google has bought semantic search startup Metaweb, according to recent post on the search giant’s blog. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Metaweb develops both semantic data storage infrastructure for the web, and Freebase, an “open, shared database of the world’s knowledge”. Freebase is a massive, collaboratively edited database of cross-linked data. The idea behind the product is to create a system for building the semantic web. Freebase allows anyone to contribute, structure, search, copy and use data. It sounds like Wikipedia, but instead of arranging by articles, it is more of an almanac, organized like a database, and readable by people and software. You can read our previous coverage of Freebase here.
Clearly, Google is acquiring Metaweb to boost its own search offerings. Metaweb’s database of tagged data will help make Google search smarter. And Freebase will be maintained as a free and open database but Google will continue to develop and contribute to Freebase. According to a blog post on the Freebase site, the site will increase the frequency of its downloadable database dumps from quarterly to weekly. The company says that it will continue to support Metaweb’s existing partners, but won’t be taking on new partners.
Co-founded by Danny Hills, Metaweb has raised close to $60 million from Omidyar Network, Millennium Technology Ventures, Benchmark Capital and Goldman Sachs.
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Deeper Understanding with Metaweb
Googleblog - July 16, 2010
By Jack Menzel, Director of Product Management, Google
Over time we've improved search by deepening our understanding of queries and web pages. The web isn't merely words-it's information about things in the real world, and understanding the relationships between real-world entities can help us deliver relevant information more quickly. Today, we've acquired Metaweb, a company that maintains an open database of things in the world. Working together we want to improve search and make the web richer and more meaningful for everyone.
With efforts like rich snippets and the search answers feature, we're just beginning to apply our understanding of the web to make search better. Type [barack obama birthday] in the search box and see the answer right at the top of the page. Or search for [events in San Jose] and see a list of specific events and dates. We can offer this kind of experience because we understand facts about real people and real events out in the world. But what about [colleges on the west coast with tuition under $30,000] or [actors over 40 who have won at least one oscar]? These are hard questions, and we've acquired Metaweb because we believe working together we'll be able to provide better answers.
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.
We look forward to working with the talented Metaweb team. We'll be sure to share details on our progress in the coming months. In the meantime, if you're interested to learn more about Metaweb's technology, we encourage you to check out a helpful video they've posted on their blog.
Links to the articles:
http://techcrunch.com/2010/07/16/google-acquires-metaweb-to-make-search-smarter/
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/07/deeper-understanding-with-metaweb.html