Vancouver’s Freebase (Wikipedia-style Semantic Web Database) Talk w/ Jim Pick – Wed. March/4 @ UBC Downtown 7pm – Free, Everyone Welcome

February 20, 2009 — Gerald

VanDev organizer Guy Lancaster invites you:

We have a room booking and in March we have Jim Pick giving a presentation on Vancouver Base, Vancouver’s Freebase effort.

About the Presentation:

Freebase is a freely licensed social database, containing structured data about more than four million topics. Freebase allows groups to come together to gather and present information about the subjects they’re passionate about, from racing cars to dog breeds to local politics. With a RESTful API and a hosted server-side Javascript app development platform called Acre, developers can use Freebase’s structured data to build data-rich mashups and web 2.0 apps.

The Vancouver Base is a collection of topics within Freebase, containing a wide range of ‘hyperlocal’ information, specifically about Vancouver, BC, Canada. The data is being collectively built using a Wikipedia-style community process, licensed into the Creative Commons, and forms one of the earliest, most cohesive collections of data about a single city on the growing Semantic Web.

Jim will show some examples of data-rich apps and mashups built with Freebase, Acre, and open data from the Vancouver Base.

Posted in Vancouver, freebase, javascript, jimpick, semanticweb. Comments Off

1st Vancouver Freebase (Free Semantic Web Database) Meetup, Sun. Feb/22 @ Irish Heather 12-3ish

February 17, 2009 — Gerald

Kirrily Robert (aka Skud) from Freebase invites you:

Join us for some lunch and a beer or two to chat about Freebase, the free database of structured data on topics ranging from earthquakes to venture capital.

We’ve arranged this meetup for the weekend of Northern Voice, which we’ll also be attending. If you’re interested in learning more about Freebase, or following up on discussions from Northern Voice, come to the Irish Heather at noon on Sunday 22nd February.

There’ll be free wifi available, and Freebase staff and experts on hand to show off some cool Freebase features and applications, and to answer all your questions.

Posted in Vancouver, freebase, rdf, semanticweb, web30. Comments Off

2nd RDF Vancouver/Semantic Web User Group Meeting – Wed, Nov/26 @ WorkSpace

November 26, 2008 — Gerald

Jim Pick posts on the event listing:

This is the second monthly meeting of the RDF Vancouver Semantic Web User Group. It is intended to be an informal event for learning about the latest Semantic Web technologies, and networking with other users/developers in the community.

It will be held at WorkSpace, from 7:00pm on Wednesday, November 26th.

Proposed program (90 minutes):

  • Dorian Taylor is going to start with a short talk for newcomers explaining what the Semantic Web is
  • Gerald Bauer is going to talk about Microformats
  • Jim Pick is going to talk about Freebase, Acre and the new Vancouver “base”

After the presentations, some of us might head over to the Irish Heather for a beer or two.

Posted in Events, Microformats, Vancouver, foaf, freebase, hcard, rdf. Comments Off