Semantic Database Open for All: Why Freebase Matters

An Alpha database casually inviting everyone to add their special know-how.

Freebase, an intended database of “the world’s knowledge,” powered by MetaWeb, may appear to be many different things depending upon your perspective/vantage point.

In its own words: “Freebase is an open database of the world’s information.” The goal: collect and structure the universe of data for an unending variety of uses.

Freebase does not use the word “semantic” anywhere to describe itself or what it’s uses are; it’s others on the outside who’ve identified it as inherently semantic. Why? Maybe for the way it unabashedly takes type sets and invisibly transforms them to the building blocks–schema– that are used to construct semantic-based applications.

Freebase dreams of being every developer’s next crush. While it’s potentially sewing together the universe of types, it comes off as a toy for the Everyman: you can add data, I can add data, we all can add data. And if you need a quick lesson on data types Freebase delivers in pared down, layman’s terms. This may be its greatest asset, it’s appeal, it’s friend-next-door quality. Drop by and drop a new data set while you’re at it, in your free time.

If you’re wondering what you

can do with Freebase here’s what they say to questioning passersby:

“There are five primary things you can do with Freebase:

1) Browse and read information…..

2) Edit existing data….

3) Upload new data sets….

4) Build applications that use Freebase data….

5) Suggest and create schemas for new data….”

If this doesn’t exactly sell it, then try this: if you know things about a particular location or a fictional world (domains), Freebase invites you to share your information, for the eventual use of others. You’d add the types to the domains. For example: to the domain “fictional universe” you could share your fictional character (type) and then the character, Dumbledore, for example. right now over 15,000 fictional characters exist under this type, but there is a world of yet to be created types.

This charismatic appeal was noted by O’Reilly Radar, too: “users don’t think they are providing metadata — they think they are just providing data.”

Right now there already exists enough data on topics like art and entertainment to produce correct and comprehensive results for “complex queries.”

Check out Freebase. Share what you know.