Google’s Data Plot Thickens with Knowledge Graph

I vividly remember a night back when I was in college. It was 3am and I was sitting at my computer, 20-page essay on Leonardo DiVinci due at 9am and pulling my hair out and yelling “Argh! Why don’t you get what I mean, Google!?”

Thankfully, those days are in the past for me…and for Google. This morning, Google announced that it will be rolling out its new Knowledge Graph interface over the next couple of days. The Knowledge Graph attempts to automatically sift through the vastness of the web the way people do.

Luckily, the countless hours we have all spent surfing around Google, getting lost, and finding ourselves have not been in vain. The Knowledge Graph technology is made possible through Google’s analysis of the trillions (yup, trillions) of searches and user behavior.

This technology will help improve your search experiences in three ways:

1. 1. You can narrow your search results to single meanings of words, names, or phrases.
2. 2. To your right, you’ll see an extremely user-friendly panel with summary of the most relevant content on your search topic.
3. 3. You can discover new and relevant information without falling down a never-ending rabbit hole.

As Google says, “We’ve always believed that the perfect search engine should understand exactly what you mean and give you back exactly what you want.” Soon you will be able to find the answer to the next question before you even knew you wanted to ask it.

We all want faster access to data, but the connection and relevancy of it is what evolves information into knowledge. I think Google gets this. The days of asking Jeeves are over but a new era of knowledge exploration is definitely upon us.  I can’t wait to give it a try.