Freebase

Freebase is a crowdsourced knowledge base with very flexible schema and simple structuring. Bought by Google.

• I now read several presentations and howto's.
• I'm sure we can take away a lot of useful editing examples.
• Powerful query editor and language (MQL):
  http://www.freebase.com/queryeditor/about
• 2009 presentations with very impressive screenshots
  http://www.slideshare.net/metawebrobert/ny-semantic-web-meetup-27-aug-2009
  http://www.slideshare.net/metawebrobert/ny-freebase-workshop-10-dec-2009
  • demoes wide coverage: screen-fulls of actors, cat breeds, beers, mountains...
  • semantic searches by Microsoft Bing (paintings!) and Google Labs
  • collection search (eg "architects of sckyscrapers in Hong Kong")
  • suggest/autocomplete showing nice description of each entity
• ACRE: web-based app dev platform
• link graphs (eg Popstra), etc etc

ACRE server-side JS environment on Freebase:

• http://www.slideshare.net/WillMoffat/serverside-javascript-on-freebase-sf-javascript-meetup-9

I think that we definitely must include FreeBase and relatives in our RS4 explorations.

Freebase data

We have experience with Freebase data (though not with the application):

• Our http://www.FactForge.net (FF) incorporates FreeBase data
• FB doesn’t use RDF constructs (e.g. rdf:type) nor RDFS/OWL inference
• We're partners with Google in the RENDER project
• As part of this, we're converting FB's constructs to standard RDFS/OWL constructs. FF includes a mapping layer (through Proton) that assigns standard rdf:type to FB data
• We used FB food data for mapping recipe ingredients to the USDA Standard Reference database in the Edamam project

Parallax

http://www.freebase.com/labs/parallax/
Parallax is an alternative search interface for FB. It is based on a "set-based browsing" paradigm, and exploring

• Please watch the video (Aug 2008). Very inspiring, and made me jealous
  http://vimeo.com/1513562
• That’s made 4y ago and is open sourced. I imagine a lot more's been done since Google purchased them.
• Parallax and Companion- Set-based Browsing for the Data Web (WWW 2009) by David Huynh
• Note: I tried making a 2D chart of 3700 skyscrapers (Height vs Construction Cost) but it locked the browser.
• Wanted to try on fewer (highest 100), but when I added "More filters> Height", the Settings link didn't do anything.

Companion

TODO: need to explore