Freebase.com

Ten of the best sites about the Web site Freebase. Know of another site that should be listed here? Leave your suggestion at the bottom of this page.

1. Freebase - Web site aims to build “an open, shared database of the world’s knowledge” by having users share, well, anything and everything. Still in its initial alpha stage, but you can request an invitation to participate, or at least see what exactly they’re doing. (www.freebase.com)

2. Creating a Database to Organize the Internet - March 9, 2007 New York Times article on Freebase, its creator Metaweb Technologies, led by “veteran technologist” Danny Hillis, and the idea of a “centralized database storing all of the world’s digital information.” (www.iht.com)

3. Freebase Will Prove Addictive - Noted technology guru Tim O’Reilly offers an enthusiastic assessment of Freebase’s chances of bringing the “semantic Web’ closer to reality in this post written upon the public announcement of Freebase’s intentions. (radar.oreilly.com)

4. Freebasing, and Not the Crack Kind - Long but interesting blog post on the great challenges necessary to make Freebase a success, and the author’s opinion that the current take on Freebase’s model is not the way to accomplish it. (burningbird.net)

5. Freebase, the Web 3.0 Machine - Nicholas Carr offers his assessment of the Freebase project, saying that the desire to have machines classify and make all known data easily retrievable without the human element mucking it up is fine in theory, but “relying on a rag-tag band of volunteers, all afflicted with those nasty evolutionary bugs, brings its own problems, particularly in an effort that, unlike Wikipedia, requires a great deal of consistency and precision in terminology.” (www.roughtype.com)

6. This is Cool, Unless It Achieves Consciousness and Kills Us All - TechCrunch’s Michael Arrington offers an enthusiastic take on the Freebase idea, saying “I imagine there will be more than one forehead self-smacked at Google HQ tomorrow, as they think ‘We could have done this.’” (www.techcrunch.com)

7. ‘Very Alpha’ - Valleywag blog takes Tim O’Reilly to task for extolling the virtues of what Freebase could be while giving himself the out of saying that it is nowhere near that today and no one should expect it to be for some time to come. (valleywag.com)

8. Another Historic Milestone? - Tech veteran Dave Winer isn’t enthusiastic about Freebase, saying in this March 9th blog post, “where’s the beef?” and “There’s nothing substantial in any of this.” (www.scripting.com)

9. Freebasing the Web… Or Just Making a Tired Idea Sound Fresh Again? - Blog post on the introduction of the Freebase effort is “skeptical, but intrigued.” (techdirt.com)

10. Freebase Wants to Blow Your Mind - March 9, 2007 post on Freebase wonders what the motivation will be for users to “tag” content in order to build the Freebase database. “Once the database is filled with interesting information and programmers start actually using it to build entirely new types of Web applications, then my mind will be blown. Until then, Freebase is just another Google wannabe.” (blogs.business2.com)