Why Google Can Use Knowledge Graph For More Than Search

Google revealed its Knowledge Graph this week, as a way to deliver better search results based on data, with less reliance on keywords. It’s still in the process of rolling out. It’s possi...
Why Google Can Use Knowledge Graph For More Than Search
Written by Chris Crum
  • Google revealed its Knowledge Graph this week, as a way to deliver better search results based on data, with less reliance on keywords. It’s still in the process of rolling out.

    It’s possible that we may see the Knowledge Graph provide content in other areas throughout the Googleverse, however.

    Christopher Dawson at ZDNet made a great point about Knowledge Graph, in that “This is why they changed their privacy policy.”

    I don’t know that this is the sole reason they changed their privacy policy, but the policy consolidation can only help Google utilize the Knowledge Graph throughout its various products in interesting ways, much like Google is already trying to do with Google+. If Google considers Google+ to be the “social spine” of the greater Google, than perhaps Knowledge Graph could eventually be seen as the “intelligent spine”.

    “Google’s Knowledge Graph isn’t just rooted in public sources such as Freebase, Wikipedia and the CIA World Factbook,” said Google’s Amit Singhal, announcing Knowledge Graph. “It’s also augmented at a much larger scale—because we’re focused on comprehensive breadth and depth. It currently contains more than 500 million objects, as well as more than 3.5 billion facts about and relationships between these different objects. And it’s tuned based on what people search for, and what we find out on the web.” Emphasis added.

    Under Google’s new privacy policy, it should have no problem using the data that’s tuned to what people are searching for, and using that to offer more knowledge-driven (possibly with some personalization) features throughout other Google products.

    In fact, it looks like Google already announced at least one integration with another Google product. Google made an announcement this week, even before the Knowledge Graph was revealed, that seems to utilize it, as Dawson points out. On the Google Docs blog, the company introduced the Research Pane for Google Docs/Drive. It’s touted as “a new feature that brings the web’s wealth of information to you as you’re writing documents.”

    The announcement does’t specifically mention Knowledge Graph, but it does talk about “bringing knowledge from the web to Google documents.” And it looks very Knowledge Graph-esque (right down to the Taj Mjal example, which Google also used in its Knowledge Graph announcement):

    Knowledge in Google Docs

    What’s to stop Google from harnessing its Knowledge Graph in other products? I can imagine a lot of interesting Google Maps integrations, for example. Google Earth, for sure. How about Google Play, considering music and movies are part of the Knowledge Graph? I can imagine a similar integration in Google books. Google News? How about related news stories based on news about certain “things” in Google’s Knowledge Graph? There could be some fun Google Calendar integrations based on significant birthday and events in the Knowledge Graph. And why not a feature similar to the Google Docs Research Pane for Blogger?

    That’s just a few possibilities off the top of my head. I’m sure Google and its engineers (not to mention with feedback from users) could think of a lot more interesting and creative ways to harness Knowledge Graph throughout Google products, and I’d be very surprised if they’re not working on more as we speak.

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