Jamie has an interesting title: Minister of Information, and his primary responsibility is to seed Freebase with information and ensure the quality of the data. According to Jamie, Freebase is "open shared database of the world's knowledge." This sounds the same as Wikipedia, but it is really quite different, because at the heart of Freebase are the ideas of semantics and openness via API.

Unlike Wikipedia, which is a free form database, Freebase is structured, where concepts and relationships are interlinked into a gigantic network or graph. Another important difference is that Freebase is all about its API. Any information contained inside the database is accessible and can be retrieved via queries. In addition, the data in Freebase is under a Creative Commons license - meaning that is readily exportable and useful by others.

When it comes to defining the meanings of things, Freebase is focused on community, with collective editing, attribution, and collaboratively built semantics. This last point is quite crucial - the founders of Freebase believe that meaning has to emerge from the collaboration between users. As such, Freebase is one of the first experiments of web-scale social contracts. The site is really focused on the notion that information is not encumbered by licenses and is free to use.

What is in Freebase Today?

Data comes into Freebase from many sources: Wikipedia, Flickr, the US Department of Commerce, Music Brainz, the USGS, SFMOMA, the US Exchange Commission, Chef Moz, and many other places. Right now the information is mostly about people and places, but the system is engineered to have a wide range of data types. As an example of "People" information, there is a lot of information in Freebase about artists along with their artwork and place in history. More esoteric types of information you might find in the database include airplanes, french cheese, tropical storms in the 90s, oil companies, and candies.

Freebase also contains lots of other kinds of data and has:

• 3.4 Million Subjects
• 750K People
• 450K Locations
• 50K Companies
• 40K Movies
• ... Over 1K Data Types with over 3K Properties

Data Representation in Freebase

While Freebase certainly has long way to go before it can claim completeness of information, its core idea of object representation and linking seems very solid. Each object in Freebase is unique. As more information comes into the system about an object, more links are created about it in the system. It is particularly interesting how Freebase establishes object identity and decides that two concepts (or subjects) are the same.

The diagram above illustrates the idea. When a new source of information is added to Freebase, it is parsed into entities and facts. The new information is then cleaned up and is merged with the existing system. But the merge only occurs if the system determines that the two bits of information are really about the same subject (in this case Leonardo Da Vinci). This is a powerful approach which allows Freebase to grow the knowledge around individual subjects. What is also interesting is that Freebase allows human editing to reconcile situations when the system is unable to automatically link the two concepts together.

Each permanent object in the system has a GUID - a unique identifier, something like this: #9202a8c040000064..... The identifier can be used to refer to the object via URL and via queries. In addition to the GUID, there are other ways to refer to the object, for example, http://www.freebase.com/view/en/leonardo_da_vinci. Beyond that, there are even other aliases, for example, you can refer to a public company by its stock ticker symbol. But regardless of the reference, the key point is that you end up with the same, unique node in the system.

Freebase also has the ability to create new domains and types that describe new concepts, for example, science fiction movies. There is a way to attach new data types to the existing domains, and then these types can be shared and used by other users. The idea is that you can model things with the fine grained resolution that you need and then you can invite people to help you refine and evolve your models. An example is the motorcycle community, which evolved out of an effort led by one guy and who was then joined by others, and has since been promoted to the top level. The community process is about merging private types to build common models.

What Can You Do With Freebase?

Freebase is not a formal system, it is not a reasoning engine, it is just a knowledge repository, a database. To query Freebase you use the Metaweb Query Language (MQL), which is based on JSON. The language is meant to be very simple and it is actually very interesting as well. The idea is that you fill out a tree which represents a partial graph with pieces that you know and then the system basically fills in all the slots that you left blank and delivers back all possible subgraphs.

For example, say you are watching a movie and you can't tell what it is. You know that the movie stars Patrick Swayze and an actress who was also in "Tank Girl." So you create a movie query and express all these facts, using JSON-style syntax. And when you run the query you get back that the actress is Lory Petty and the movie is "Point Break" and you also get links to IMDB. So the query and the results have the same structure and to find matches you simply traverse the set of results that is returned.

Building on this example, Freebase is really meant for complex inferencing queries, the sorts of questions that Google has no way of answering using its statistical frequency algorithms. For example, what US senators took money from a foreign entity? Turns out that both Barak Obama and Hillary Clinton received donations from UBS AG, based in Switzerland. That is a complex inferencing query that needs to be expressed in a query language before it can be answered and so questions of this nature are outside of the reach of any search engine -- and Wikipedia too, for that matter.

Resources

There is quite a lot of activity going on around Freebase today. Many enthusiasts are building small proof of concept applications showcasing what can be done in the future with this powerful database. You can stay on top of the cutting edge stuff coming both from the Freebase team and community at: http://download.freebase.com and http://research.freebase.com

Next Gen Apps Won't Be Pushed Around By the Browser

The invention of the browser was a huge boon to the internet and a substantial amount of computing now goes on through that interface we've grown to love. The internet is not a place where innovation takes a break, though, and a new generation of applications are emerging that have a different relationship with the web browser.

From taking control of the browser to connecting to the web outside of it, there are a number of new strategies being implemented by startups these days. In the following post we discuss seven different ways that new apps are telling browsers "you 'aint the boss of me now!" Some you'll be familiar with, but some you may not be.

Wikis Are Now Serious Business

Only a handful of years ago, it was common to hear people laugh at Wikipedia. Anyone can edit it! How could you take it seriously? These days, just as blogs are, wikis are on their way to winning a reputation as serious publishing platforms.

Free hosted wiki provider Wetpaint announced last night that it's now raised a total of $40 million in venture capital. To celebrate this major financial validation of the wiki world, we thought we'd offer a brief survey of some of the most interesting ways that wikis are being put to serious use today.

How to Make Facebook Useful Again

Oh the heels of some of Facebook's missteps (ahem, Beacon) and the proliferation of a myriad of useless, silly, and time-wasting apps, some former Facebook users decided to quit the site for good this year. However, a handful of early adopter angst doesn't have Facebook worried. Why is that? Because Facebook has a whole generation of users who grew up using their site for everything social back when it was just a way to network with their high school or college friends. So what are the everyday Facebook users doing that keeps them engaged in the service? It's not throwing sheep, apparently. For many Facebook users, there are still useful apps to be found and ways to use the service that the rest of us could learn from.

See also: Why There Should Be Web Search on Facebook and Facebook Censoring User Messaging: Spam Prevention or Unaccountable Control of Conversation?

Google Health Launches - Cautious, Non-Innovative Entry into Health 2.0

This week Google announced the public availability of Google Health, after initially launching as a closed beta back in February. It is described as "a safe and secure way to collect, store, and manage [your] medical records and health information online" and is being positioned as a way for users to control their own medical records.

Google Health is a decent entry into the game-changing (and potentially hugely profitable) world of health 2.0. But in comparison with other health startups, Google Health has a limited scope and is not as innovative a service as we've come to expect from Google...

The Future of Mobile Social Networks: 4 Promising Services

Recently we discussed some of the problems plaguing mobile social networks. These problems include location, marketing strategies and compatibility issues. Our readers also contributed their thoughts on hardware compatibility and GPS. While no network is perfect, in this post we profile some of the key players in the market. Here's a look at four mobile social networks that may have what it takes.

SEE MORE WEB APPS COVERAGE IN OUR WEB APPS CATEGORY

Web Trends

Report: The Mobile Web is the New Hangout

According to Opera's survey of the more 11.9 million Opera Mini users in March, almost 41% of mobile traffic now goes to social networking -- up to 60% in some countries, including the US. Compare that to about 6% of total web traffic for social networks outside of the mobile web. That's not overly surprising, though, given the recent proliferation of new smartphones aimed at consumers (or at least phones that can view the full web), made ultra-chic over the past year by Apple's iPhone. Says Opera, 3/4ths of mobile web traffic is now to the full web, rather than WAP or .mobi sites, which are quickly becoming out-moded.

See Also: To Beat Google, Beat Google to the Mobile Web

Do you use the mobile web? Remember to vote in our poll below.

Social Media U: Take a Class in Social Media

Social media. Web 2.0. You know what these things are and you take advantage of them every day on the net. Whether you're socializing on Facebook, updating Twitter, or just adding a new bookmark to Ma.gnolia, social media has become an integral part of our daily lives. However, that doesn't mean that it's something that everyone innately understands or knows how to use - especially when it comes to using it for marketing, PR, or other business-related purposes. That's why many of today's colleges and universities are now offering "social media" classes as an option for their students.

How to Use Social Media for Social Change

Did you participate in the Twit-Out this week? Do you even know what that is? To get you up to speed, a handful of Twitter users, fed up with the regular outages of their favorite service, decided to band together to show Twitter some tough love by boycotting the service for a day. (Unfortunately, despite having fewer users on the service, Twitter still went down). However, in light of recent world events, it's a shame that the cause the tech community has chosen to rally around is that of Twitter's instability. Aren't there more important things going on right now?

The URL Is Dead, Long Live Search

Last week Josh Catone was watching TV and saw something that really caught his eye. It was a commercial for Special K, the breakfast cereal from Kellogg, and rather than end with a plug for the product's web site -- SpecialK.com -- it advised people to search Yahoo! for "Special K" instead. He started to wonder two things: 1. is Yahoo! paying Special K for tack-on advertising? and 2. has searching really become so natural that it is more effective to tell people to search for your site than it is to tell them to visit directly?

SemTech Panel: Taking Semantic Technology to the Masses

How will the Semantic Web make the jump to the mainstream? That was the topic of a panel at the SemTech 2008 Conference that happened this week in San Jose. The panel was moderated by Carla Thomson from Guidewire Group and featured Josh Dilworth from Porter Novelli, Tom Tague, who heads the Calais initiative at Reuters, and Mark Johnson, who is a product manager at Powerset. This post is based on notes from that panel.

See also: SemTech Panel: Investor Opportunities and Pitfalls

SEE MORE WEB TRENDS COVERAGE IN OUR TRENDS CATEGORY

That's a wrap for another week! Enjoy your weekend everyone.

The panel began with a discussion of the mainstream and the Semantic Web. Everyone agrees that there is a big need to simplify messaging to the masses. Marketing the Semantic Web to consumers does not make sense because they don't care about technical specifics. People do not need to know about RDF and Microformats, what they are looking for are simple and tangible benefits that make their lives on the web easier.

Carla points out that we need to invent new terminology to describe the transformation and the new technologies that are being developed. She suggests to use the term "Smarter Web." This is a new web where people can find things that they are looking for faster, and experience more intelligent, contextual interactions with the vast amount of information out there.

What is the Killer App?

The discussion shifts from what is wrong with Semantic Web marketing to what is the "killer app" for the Semantic Web. Tom Tague says there is no killer app, and there really can't be. He thinks of semantic technologies as the spice, the infrastructure that will give rise to a family of semantic web applications. Tom argues that what we are seeing is pieces being brought slowly to market, which make search incrementally better, make browsing incrementally better, etc.

Naturally, the discussion shifts to the impact on Google. For better or worse, people expect the killer app for the Semantic Web to be a Google killer as well. As an example, after the recent launch of Powerset it has been constantly compared to Google. [Including on this blog -- Ed.] Mark Johnson points out that this is not reasonable, because Powerset is simply not yet there -- right now it can only search Wikipedia.

So coming full circle to Tom's point, if we're only going to get incremental improvements, the question is then how much effort is warranted. This is not a minor point given that the bar is set high because companies themselves and the media are creating lots of hype around the Semantic Web.

PR and Hype Around the Semantic Web

The goal of Powerset, for example, is to change the way that people interact with computers. Carla points out that marketing that claims large goals, like to change human-computer interactions, is quite ambitious. Maybe this messaging needs to be incremental just like the progress that is being achieved. As an example of adjustment in messaging, Carla suggests that it could simply be: Powerset today provides a better way of searching information in Wikipedia. As more tools are get rolled out, the messaging can adjust, and then once all the bits are in place, switch to the messaging about changing the way that people interact with computers.

An interesting twist to the whole conversation is the need for larger Semantic Web players to justify longer terms plans. Powerset, for example, is a 60 person company with > 20 employees that have PhDs in computational linguistics. Venture capitalists don't want to hear that all the company will do is to change the way that people search Wikipedia. So Powerset has been forced to justify a longer run and bigger staff by putting broader goals on the map.

Further, the messaging tool is the media, which is becoming increasingly more hype-based. Companies are being provoked to describe their broader vision, to appear big and ambitious in order to get coverage. So there is a conflict between market messaging, investor messaging and a realistic, long term plan to deliver semantic technologies to the market.

Ease of Use

Beyond marketing, everyone agrees that if semantic technologies can deliver tangible consumer benefits, then marketing problems will not be as acute. It is the tension between loud marketing and the modest forward progress being made that is leaving everyone underwhelmed.

And so, the panel agrees that Semantic Web companies need to pay more attention to the user experience, and to ease of use in particular. Tom Tague says that people don't care what is underneath. Infrastructure does not excite people, but UI does.

Conclusion

Panelists agreed that despite the challenges, companies are making definite progress. They also agreed that it would be good to tone down marketing, remove the grandiose Semantic Web slogans, and focus on specific consumer utility.