14 DAY TRIAL // Google has just disclosed its second big acquisition of the month and this one is even more related to its core business, search. The company has acquired Metaweb which manages an open database of structured and cross-linked information about the world. Google says Metaweb should help it improve its search capabilities with a clear focus on semantic search. No financial details have been revealed. Metaweb has raised about $57 million in funding in the five years of its existence.
“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,” Jack Menzel, Director of Product Management at Google, wrote.
“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,” he said, explaining the reasons behind the acquisition.
Metaweb operates Freebase, a free database with over 12 million entries on everything from books to locations. Freebase is constantly updated and everyone can contribute to it. Google plans to continue to maintain Freebase and will also contribute to it. What’s more, a downloadable version of the updated database will be released once a week rather than once a quarter like until now.
Google clearly plans to use Metaweb’s technology and data to bolster its search capabilities for specific queries. Google, like most search engines out there, has been trying to make sense of the web and apply some order and structure to it. One move is to encourage webmasters to attach meta data, known as rich snippets, to pages which would help the search engine know what to make of the information and how it relates to everything else. A more niche but direct effort is Google Squared, its structured data search engine.