Metaweb

This article is about the company Metaweb Technologies. For the defunct Quicksilver Wiki, previously known as The Metaweb, see Neal Stephenson.
Metaweb Technologies, Inc.
Company typePrivate
IndustryData management
FoundedJuly 2005; 19 years ago (2005-07)
FounderVeda Hlubinka-Cook,
Danny Hillis,
John Giannandrea
Fateacquired by Google
in July 2010[1]
Headquarters
San Francisco, California
,
United States
Key people
Kurt Bollacker
(Chief scientist)
Danny Hillis (Chairman)
Thomas Layton (CEO)[2]
Veda Hlubinka-Cook
EVP, product development
John Giannandrea (CTO)
ProductsFreebase — an online database
Websitewww.metaweb.com

Metaweb Technologies, Inc. was a San Francisco–based company that developed Freebase, described as an "open, shared database of the world's knowledge". The company was co-founded by Danny Hillis, Veda Hlubinka-Cook and John Giannandrea in 2005.[3]

Metaweb was acquired by Google in 2010.[1] Google shut down Freebase in 2016, transferring some of the data that met the required notability criteria to Wikidata.[4][5][6]

  1. ^ a b "Metaweb joins Google" (Press release). Metaweb. 2010-07-16. Archived from the original on 2012-05-30. Retrieved 2010-07-16.
  2. ^ Metaweb announces hiring of Thomas Layton, CEO Archived 2008-02-20 at the Wayback Machine
  3. ^ Markoff, John (2007-03-09). "Start-Up Aims for Database to Automate Web Searching". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 2018-04-17. Retrieved 2008-03-26.
  4. ^ "From Freebase to Wikidata: The Great Migration" (PDF). 11 April 2016. Archived (PDF) from the original on 26 October 2020. Retrieved 25 August 2020.
  5. ^ Douglas, Jason (December 16, 2014). "Announcement: From Freebase to Wikidata". Freebase Discuss. Google Groups. Archived from the original on January 22, 2011. Retrieved December 16, 2014.
  6. ^ "So long and thanks for all the data!". 2 May 2016. Archived from the original on 22 January 2011. Retrieved 5 May 2016.