Google purchases Metaweb, creator of Freebase

Google has purchased Metaweb, the creators of Freebase. Freebase is "An entity graph of people, places and things, built by a community that loves open data," or "Freebase is an open, Creative Commons licensed repository of structured data of more than 12 million entities." According to Google's blog,

In addition to our ideas for search, we’re also excited about the possibilities for Freebase, Metaweb’s free and open database of over 12 million things, including movies, books, TV shows, celebrities, locations, companies and more. Google and Metaweb plan to maintain Freebase as a free and open database for the world. Better yet, we plan to contribute to and further develop Freebase and would be delighted if other web companies use and contribute to the data. We believe that by improving Freebase, it will be a tremendous resource to make the web richer for everyone. And to the extent the web becomes a better place, this is good for webmasters and good for users.