Metaweb

Metaweb Technologies, Inc. was a San Francisco-based technology company founded in 2005 by Danny Hillis, Veda Hlubinka-Cook, and John Giannandrea. Its principal contribution was Freebase, a large-scale, openly accessible database intended to organize facts about people, places, organizations, works, concepts, and other entities in a machine-readable form. Rather than functioning only as a conventional encyclopedia, Freebase was designed as a shared knowledge infrastructure: users and developers could contribute structured statements, connect related entities, and build applications on top of the resulting graph of information. The company emerged during a period when search engines and online services were increasingly attempting to move beyond keyword matching toward a more semantic understanding of information. Metaweb's work addressed this challenge by representing knowledge as relationships among entities. This approach made Freebase relevant to search, data integration, recommendation systems, and other applications that required computers to interpret facts and connections rather than merely retrieve pages of text. Freebase was also notable for its open and collaborative model, which allowed a broad community to expand and correct the database. Metaweb attracted substantial venture financing while developing its platform. In March 2006, it raised $15 million from investors including Benchmark Capital, Millennium Technology Ventures, and Omidyar Network. In January 2008, the company announced a $42.5 million Series B financing round led by Goldman Sachs and Benchmark Capital. Kevin Harvey of Benchmark Capital served on the company's board during this period. The financing supported the continued development and expansion of Freebase, although Metaweb remained a private company and did not have a public stock listing. Google acquired Metaweb on July 16, 2010, for an undisclosed amount. The acquisition brought Metaweb's technology and expertise into Google, where structured knowledge became increasingly important to search products and the company's broader knowledge-graph initiatives. After the acquisition, Freebase continued to operate for several years under Google's ownership. Google ultimately shut down Freebase in 2016. Some of the data that met the applicable notability requirements was transferred to Wikidata, allowing portions of the database's contribution to persist in another openly maintained knowledge system. Metaweb is therefore best understood as a defunct technology-company brand associated with the development of open structured knowledge and knowledge-graph infrastructure. Its independent corporate existence ended with Google's acquisition, while its most important product and technical ideas continued to influence the organization of information on the web.

Metaweb Technologies was established in 2005 in San Francisco by Danny Hillis, Veda Hlubinka-Cook, and John Giannandrea. The founders pursued the idea that information on the web could be represented more usefully as structured relationships among entities. This concept led to Freebase, an open and shared database that collected facts about a wide range of subjects and connected those facts in a form suitable for both human exploration and software processing. Freebase differed from a conventional collection of unstructured web pages. It was designed as a data system in which entities could have properties, types, and links to other entities. A person could be associated with an organization, a work with its creator, or a place with geographic and administrative relationships. The collaborative model allowed users and participating developers to add information, correct records, and extend the database's coverage. This made Freebase an early and influential example of an openly maintained knowledge graph. Metaweb raised $15 million in March 2006. The investors identified in reference material were Benchmark Capital, Millennium Technology Ventures, and Omidyar Network. The company later announced a $42.5 million Series B financing round on January 15, 2008, led by Goldman Sachs and Benchmark Capital. Kevin Harvey of Benchmark Capital served on Metaweb's board of directors. These financings provided resources for the company's platform and database work, but Metaweb remained privately held. The strategic value of structured knowledge increased as search companies sought to answer questions directly and improve their understanding of entities and relationships. Google acquired Metaweb on July 16, 2010, in a transaction whose value was not disclosed. Following the acquisition, Metaweb's technology and personnel became part of Google's efforts in structured data and knowledge representation. The independent Metaweb corporate brand did not continue as a separately listed or publicly traded company. Google closed Freebase in 2016. Some records that satisfied the relevant notability criteria were transferred to Wikidata, preserving part of Freebase's accumulated contribution in another community-maintained knowledge base. Metaweb's lasting significance lies in the connection between its open-data model, its knowledge-graph architecture, and the subsequent development of large-scale systems for organizing factual information.

• 2016

  Freebase is shut down

  [1]Metaweben.wikipedia.org

  Google discontinued Freebase and moved some qualifying data to Wikidata.

• 2010

  Acquired by Google

  [1]Metaweben.wikipedia.org

  Google acquired Metaweb for an undisclosed amount.

• 2008

  Series B financing announced

  [1]Metaweben.wikipedia.org

  The company announced a $42.5 million Series B round led by Goldman Sachs and Benchmark Capital.

• 2006

  First reported major financing

  [1]Metaweben.wikipedia.org

  Metaweb received $15 million from Benchmark Capital, Millennium Technology Ventures, and Omidyar Network.

• 2005

  Metaweb is founded

  [1]Metaweben.wikipedia.org

  Danny Hillis, Veda Hlubinka-Cook, and John Giannandrea co-founded Metaweb Technologies in San Francisco.

Metaweb positioned itself around open, shared, structured knowledge: a platform intended to make facts and relationships understandable to both people and software. Its identity was centered less on consumer-facing branding than on providing a foundational data layer for search, information retrieval, and applications built on interconnected entities.

• Open knowledge database and knowledge graph

  Freebase

  Freebase was Metaweb's principal product: an openly accessible, collaboratively maintained database of structured information about entities and their relationships. It was intended to support browsing, data integration, search, and software applications by expressing facts in machine-readable form. Freebase operated for several years after Google's acquisition of Metaweb and was shut down by Google in 2016. Some data meeting applicable notability requirements was transferred to Wikidata.

• 2016

  Freebase is discontinued and selected data is transferredStrategy

  Background

  Google decided to end Freebase as a standalone service after operating it following the Metaweb acquisition.

  Action taken

  Google shut down Freebase and transferred some data meeting its notability requirements to Wikidata.

  Aftermath

  Freebase ceased operation, while a portion of its data remained available through Wikidata.

  Source

• 2010

  Google acquires MetawebM&A

  Background

  Metaweb had developed Freebase and technology for representing open, structured knowledge. Google acquired the company as structured information became increasingly relevant to search and knowledge systems.

  Action taken

  Google purchased Metaweb on July 16, 2010, for an undisclosed amount.

  Aftermath

  Metaweb's technology and expertise were incorporated into Google, while Freebase continued for a period before being discontinued in 2016.

  Source

1. 1Metaweben.wikipedia.org