Freebase

I wanted post a quick note about new technology I heard about today via podcast. The technology is freebase created by Metaweb.

As you might guess from the name, freebase is a free database for the web containing all sorts of information contributed by users. In other words, it's a huge Wikipedia-style database that anyone can contribute or query to find interesting (and possibly little known) information and relationships between seemingly unrelated objects.

For instance, assuming the information is in the database, I could query to find "all wooden roller coasters in the northeast longer than 5200 feet." That's pretty cool. Assuming I found some results, I could whittle down the set further, looking for which roller coasters have been ridden by Rock Stars or with lower height restrictions (so I could ride with my daughter).

Because the data can be contributed by the average person, the breadth and depth of the information to search for will grow quickly (and hopefully be of high quality).

The concept is great! Freebase is in pre-Alpha right now and I've signed up for an account to try it out. Once I get in, I'll let you know what I think.

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