14 DAY TRIAL // The web as we known it now can be incredibly useful but it's also incredibly chaotic. Many have been clamoring about the next phase of the web, the semantic web, which adds meaning to all of the data scattered around and some are trying slightly different approaches at organizing the information. One such project is Factual, an open repository for all types of information nicely structured and arranged.
The Internet can be a great place for information but actually finding and accessing that information is somewhat of a challenge. For the better part of the world wide web's existence search engines have been the best and most used tools for finding answers in the information chaos but they can only get you so far. Search engines are great at sifting through enormous amounts of content and help you find what you are looking for but only if you already know what you want. What's more, for the most part, search engines don't really understand the data they are retrieving.
There are several attempts at making more sense of the information available – Wofram Alpha and Google's Squared are both trying to structure the data, albeit in different ways, but there are other projects. Now Factual joins the fray with a fresh approach. It doesn't want to be a search engine and it doesn't want to be another Wikipedia but it is in fact a little of both.
Factual is a project that aims to build up large amounts of data on any topic imaginable, structure it nicely in a giant database and present it in clean and orderly spreadsheets. Of course, this is actually a daunting task, which is why the site is relying on the help of contributors to feed and curate all of the data. Users will be able to add new data or correct the one that they believe to be incorrect.
To avoid the problems Wikipedia is having, users won't be able to overwrite data with their own entries but rather the site will present the data that seems to be the most reliable having been vetted by the most users. The site is now launched in public beta, allowing anyone to “share and mash open data” and at one point will make it all available through an API. Factual is the brainchild of Gil Elbaz, the cofounder of Applied Semantics, which was acquired by Google in 2003 for $100 million and went on to become the AdSense technology that provides the search giant with the vast majority of its multi-billion dollar yearly revenue.