Diana Tamabayeva & Dan Delany
API’s, Freebase, and the
Collaborative Semantic Web

Dan Delany
dan.delany@gmail.com
cognitiveharmony.net
970‐309‐8598

Object‐Oriented Representation
“John Smith is a five‐
foot‐tall male who
weighs one‐hundred
eighty pounds. He’s
forty‐two years old and
he loves dogs.”
sortByHeight(users);
isADude(“John Smith”);
Structured data in String of characters
object ‐ useful to ‐ useful to people
computers

Object‐Oriented Representation
class Dog<Mammal class Place
@home, @age, @human @latlong, @elevation,
def goHome @address, @name
go(@home); def isBelowSeaLevel
Home
end @elevation < 0;
end
Pet
Home
Human
Spouse
O‐O instance variables and class Human<Mammal Friends
methods represent @home, @age, @pets
structured semantic @spouse, @friends
def divorce
relationships between
@spouse = nil;
pieces of information. end

Structured Semantic
Relationships Among Objects
We visualize this with a semantic graph.

The (hypertext) Web Today
Web Servers
WWW
LAMP
User Computer

The (semantic) Web Tomorrow?
Servers
Servers
User Computer
Structured Data
(OWL/RDF)
Data Aggregator/
Document Data
(HTML/CSS)
Visualizer
Hyperlinks
Servers
(Old www links)

A Cloud that Talks To Itself.
vs.

Why? Searchability.
With semantic graphs, you can perform semantic searches
by traversing the graph:
“Where does the woman who lives at 2408 Walnut work?”

Why? So You Can Mash it Up.
twittermap.com
mapmash.googlepages.com/gaza.html
Mashups create meaning from data.
housingmaps.com

Why? Context‐Aware AI
Today’s AI is limited by the domain‐
specificity of its input data
Example: Image Analysis
Context‐Unaware: Blob Tracking
Useful in it’s domain (in this
case, touch detection), but
ultimately has no
Blob2 ‘intelligence.’
Blob1

Why? Context‐Aware AI
Today’s AI is limited by the domain‐
specificity of its input data
Example: Image Analysis
Context‐Aware: Mine the semantic
graph for heuristics and clues
Trees
Sky
You’re in the mountains
near Aspen, CO. It is the
fall. Your friends Taifur
and Rachel are at
the same location. Etc.
Rachel Taifur Dan

Why? Context‐Aware AI
I have a dream for the Web [in which computers] become capable of analyzing
all the data on the Web ‐ the content, links, and transactions between people
and computers. A ‘Semantic Web’, which should make this possible, has yet to
emerge, but when it does, the day‐to‐day mechanisms of trade, bureaucracy
and our daily lives will be handled by machines talking to machines.
The ‘intelligent agents’ people have
touted for ages will finally materialize.
Tim Berners‐Lee, 1999

Challenges ‐ Motivation/Critical Mass
Value comes from ubiquity,
and ubiquity comes from value.
How do we encourage adoption of technology
that does not yet provide value?
More importantly, how will it provide value to content producers?
How is giving away your data’s meaning (your secret sauce)
instead of presenting it alongside ads valuable?
Should semantic feeds be monetized?
“Information As A Service”
14

Challenges ‐ Privacy/Security
• Reduced anonymity on the Web
• Increased invasion of privacy
• SoluSon: access privileges must
be controlled by infrastructure‐
level security

The State of the Semantic Web

Top‐Down: Content Structuring
•SemanSc search engines generate and leverage an internal semanSc database
•Data sSll returned as HTML, no API not helping create the semanSc web!

Top‐Down: Dapper
•Dapper ‐ UI for seXng up rules to
scrape semi‐structured data (CSV, RSS, XML)
RDF
from any set of HTML documents! CSV
to semanSc web
RSS OWL
WWW

Top‐Down: Yahoo! Pipes
•Yahoo! Pipes ‐ UI for transforming,
reformaXng, and combining data feeds into
RDF
more useful data feeds.
JSON
to semanSc web
CSV RSS OWL
JSON
RSS

Bottom‐Up: Publishing Standards
RDF and OWL standards
•W3C‐sponsored standards for defining semanSc relaSonships and resources
•Powerful, but complex and hard for humans to read/create
•No mo@va@on for developers to create
•No W3C‐sponsored universal ontologies
<rdf:Description owl:Class rdf:ID=\"Car\"
rdf:about=\"http://.../DansCar\"> rdfs:subClassOf rdf:resource=\"#Vehicle\"
<car:color>Red</car:color> rdfs:subClassOf [a owl:Restriction;
<car:make>Honda</make> owl:cardinality \"4\"^^xsd:nonNegativeInteger;
<car:year>1999</make> owl:onProperty <#Wheel> ]
RDF Data Node OWL Ontology
Dan’s hasA
isA
Car Color
Vehicle
color make
Car
HasMul*ple(4)
year
1999

API’s: I dream of a RESTful tomorrow
Thousands of content creators are already sharing structured data
with API’s!

Bottom‐Up: Knowledge Bases
Domain Experts
•CollaboraSve a_empt to build
factual knowledge base
•“Object‐Oriented Wikipedia”

Bottom‐Up: Knowledge Bases
Domain Experts
•Content contributed by
experts manually, or by dataset
owners automaScally.
Seman@c
Analysis

Freebase: The Everything Graph

Metaweb Freebase Statistics
•5.3 million topics today
•Growing by ~15,000/month
•Pulled from public data
•By comparison, Wikipedia has
2.64 million English arScles
•25,379 users today.
•Growing by 600‐800/month
•Freebase Launch, March 2007
•LLC Founded, July 2005

The Freebase Approach
Crea@ve Commons Content
ALribu@on License Publishers WWW
Open API
PI
RDF A
(MQL) App Developers
Node Editor GUI
Data Modelers
Expert Users &
Dataset Owners
Casual
Collaborators Exis@ng
Datasets WWW

Freebase Data Policy
Crea@ve Commons
•Requires A_ribuSon of Source
ALribu@on License
MQL Query:
Open API
PI
[{ \"album\" : {
RDF A
\"artist\" : [],
\"name\" : null,
(MQL) \"release_date\" : null
},
\"limit\" : 25,
\"name\" : null,
\"name~=\" : \"Love*\",
\"type\" : \"/music/track\" }]
Returns:
Data [{ \"album\" : {
\"artist\" : [\"Massive Attack\"],
\"name\" : \"Blue Lines\",
\"release_date\" : \"1991-04-08\"
Freedom!
},
\"name\" : \"One Love\",
\"type\" : \"/music/track\"
},{\"album\" : {
\"artist\" : [“Squirrel Nut
Zippers\"],
\"name\" : \"The Inevitable\",
\"release_date\" : \"1995-03-17\"
},
\"name\" : \"Anything But Love\",

The Freebase Approach
Crea@ve Commons Content
ALribu@on License Publishers WWW
Open API
PI
RDF A
(MQL) App Developers
Node Editor GUI
Data Modelers
Expert Users &
Dataset Owners
Casual
Collaborators Exis@ng
Datasets WWW

Freebase Community
App Developers List
Data Modelers List
App Developers
IRC Chat (open to all)
Data Modelers
Discussion Threads
on Individual Topics Expert Users &
Dataset Owners
•No Central Forum
•No Backlog of Mailing List
Casual
•No Friends
Collaborators
•No Private Messages

Freebase Community Tools
“Acre, the Freebase applicaSon
development plaqorm, lets anyone
mashup Freebase data using
Javascript and have it hosted for
Employees free.” ‐ Shawn Simister, developer
App Developers
“We have been working “[Data Modeling is hard because new
hard recently to provide schemas are a slow process, and they
bulk import tools can break users’ code. Let’s have a
“Sloppy Freebase” that allows Data Modelers
for Freebase. While such
tools exist internally, the users to enter unstructured data unSl
reconciliaSon process has new schemas are defined.]” ‐ Jack Alves,
Expert Users &
thus far been too former Metaweb Director of Engineering
Dataset Owners
complicated for public
release.” ‐ Brian
Culbertson, Metaweb
“As a programmer, I feel that I'm most
Engineer
effecSve when I'm contribuSng
large data sets … faciliSes
Casual built into Freebase that let users
Collaborators upload lists of topics are limited to
specific situaSons.” ‐ Shawn Simister

“Sloppy” Data Modeling
“[Data Modeling is hard because new
Currently, Freebase users cannot submit data if there is not
schemas are a slow process, and they
already a data structure + ontology built for that data type.
can break users’ code. Let’s have a
“Sloppy Freebase” that allows
“Sloppy” data creation allows users to create their own data
users to enter unstructured data unSl
new schemas are defined.]” ‐ Jack Alves,
types, which will later be cleaned and standardized.
former Metaweb Director of Engineering
User‐Generated, Semi‐
structured “sloppy” data Clean, structured data
Bob Jones John Green
RDF
major: English area of study:
Sociology
to semanSc web
John Green Eric Bradley
Bob Jones
focus: studying:
area of study:
Sociology CS
OWL
English
Casual Automated Data Eric Bradley
Collaborators Cleaner‐Upper area of study:
CS

Conclusion
We are here. • Progress
• RDF/OWL
• Freebase ‐ 5.3 mil. topics!
• Dapper, Yahoo! Pipes, other
data abstractors
• API’s out the wazoo
• Issues
• AdopSon
• Privacy/Security
• Intellectual Property
• We’re good at making
content, but we suck at
mining it and describing it.