In a bid to improve its search capabilities, Google, Inc has bought Metaweb, a startup that specializes in maintaining a database of information on the internet. The move is aimed at deepening Google’s understanding of the web in these times that information is getting more and more complex.
Google acknowledges that it’s very good at answering straightforward queries like “Barack Obama’s birthday” or the population of a city because such information is based on words that are found on web pages. However, words on the Internet can have lots of meanings attached to them like being the title of a song, a city’s name or something else.
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.
This is where Google stumbles while Metaweb has been improving, because Metaweb looks at the connections between people, places and things instead of just words. This information has been added to its open database called Freebase where at present 12 million items have been entered by volunteers.
Experts estimate the acquisition to be greater than the $57 million funding Metaweb collected from various venture groups.
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