Google Acquires Metaweb to Improve Search

When creating web content, people use all sort of words and phrases to describe one thing. One of the biggest problems is trying to filter out what things these words are referring to.  Text can have a variety of meanings which makes searching the World Wide Web and its infinite possibilities difficult at times. An attempt to mitigate this problem and add context to web content is what is called the "semantic web."  However, this idea has faced many problems and has never become standardized. Metaweb has essentially created a solution to the problem of adding context by flipping the problem on its head. Rather than each content producer having to add semantic context to their content, Metaweb has created a huge database of already categorized content that producers can refer to in their websites.

One example Metaweb gives is the University of California, Berkeley. This university is also referred to as CAL, UCB, UC Berkeley and many others. Yet, all of these synonyms refer to the same "entity" – which is a lot like a noun -- a person, place or thing.  Metaweb has cataloged this particular entity in its database, therefore when a person using their software refers to CAL or UC Berkeley it will point to the cataloged reference of University of California, Berkeley. This "mapping" from plain text to "entities" provides many benefits including being able to better define relationships among web content, easier content updating and far better search features. By acquiring this company, Google is making a statement that they support this technology and hopefully we will see it being integrated into their current product line. This could be a huge plus for not only web developers and content producers but also offer web users vastly more accurate search results.