Fluidinfo, Wikipedia For Databases

Slags writes "The idea behind Fluidinfo is that read-only information is just not as useful on the Web as openly writable information. Metadata is used routinely in the real world from name tags to post-it notes but it is much harder to apply metadata to information on the Internet. That is where Fluidinfo comes along. When information needs to be stored about an object the Fluidinfo database is queried. If the object exists in Fluidinfo, the information is appended to the object. If the object does not exist then it will be created and stored."

Comments

So what is it?

[sakdoctor]

Fluidinfo is an online information storage and search platform.

So what is it?

Fluidinfo provides a universal metadata engine because it has an object for everything imaginable, just like Wikipedia has a web page for everything.

So what is it?

Fluidinfo makes it possible for data to be social. It allows almost unlimited information personalization by individual users and applications, and also between them.

So what is it?

Re:So what is it?

[oscartheduck]

It's a slashvertisement; the page linked to in the article is just the front page for the product. No news, no editorial, no review, no discussion (as you pointed out) of what it is. Nothing.

Re:So what is it?

[Lord Grey]

Fluidinfo is a database of metadata. But since metadata is really just data, Fluidinfo is really a database of data. Which is to say, it's a database. But there's a twist. You can make new "objects" at will. Kind of like most other databases, actually. But with even more of a twist, anyone can do that! Like what happens when you forget to secure your firewall. Then the excitement starts: You can add arbitrary key/value data -- metadata! -- to the object! Like a JOIN with another SQL table but with different semantics. But since the actual usage of the key/value pairs is not governed, you will have to collaborate with other users and applications through some external channel. The shared keys could be coordinated in an external database, for example.

Sarcasm aside, I'm sure this project is really cool and stuff, but the cynic in me thinks otherwise.

Re:So what is it?

[malakai]

The Gist: http://blogs.fluidinfo.com/fluidinfo/2011/02/23/putting-domain-names-onto-data-with-fluidinfo/
Example Object: http://blogs.fluidinfo.com/fluidinfo/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/book-object.png

My 15s appraisal:
They want to be the single-source OO database for 'everything'. Take all the data in wiki or any webpage ( assuming it's about an entity), extract any quantitative properties, ( Size, color, temperature, weight, Atomic Number... etc) and add them to Fluidinfo. Incorporate a way for domain names to 'brand' their data, and you how have a way of defeating spammers and griefers who are just going to setup bots to load crap into this OO database.

Way too many ways for this to fail imo. In the 'future' I expect the same info to simply be published by data owners. Or, simply extracted by an app for us running in a Google data center.. Actually... Wolfram Alpha already does this. but I think they threw people at the problem, not natural langue parser.

That said, wouldn't it be cool if ounce of knowledge was query-able in a semantic way? Yeah sure, it'd be cool. Don't hold your breathe we get their through Fluidinfo.

Re:So what is it?

[aix tom]

The Cat: [to Rimmer] What *is* it?
Rimmer: It's a rent in the space-time continuum.
The Cat: [to Lister] What *is* it?
Lister: The stasis room freezes time, you know, makes time stand still. So whenever you have a leak, it must preserve whatever it's leaked into, and it's leaked into this room.
The Cat: [to Rimmer] What *is* it?
Rimmer: It's singularity, a point in the Universe where the normal laws of space and time don't apply.
The Cat: [to Lister] What *is* it?
Lister: It's a hole back into the past.
The Cat: Oh, a magic door! Well, why didn't you say?

Re:So what is it?

[terrycojones]

Hi. I know, it's easy to be a cynic - I'm great at it :-) I'm happy to help you understand if you like. There is a perms system on tags, so you don't have to collaborate with others over the data you add to objects. Your tags are in your namespace, like lordgrey/rating and you control them. And sure, it's a database (in fact it used to be called FluidDB). It's also a Turing Machine :-) The main point it that normally when people or apps have information about something (a URL, an email address, a zipcode, a name, whatever) they are forced to store it somewhere else - by which I mean you normally can't just add your own information to the digital objects you bump into. That's because you weren't anticipated, the data structure doesn't support you, you don't have permission, etc. So you (and your apps) end up putting your data elsewhere - in another database, behind another API, etc. - and that information is then less valuable than it could be. Fluidinfo is like wikipedia for data - anyone, or any app, can contribute data about anything - no questions asked, don't stop to ask permission. The incremental information (metadata, if you like) becomes more valuable because it is stored in context and can be queried with other related but independent information on the same object. Humans work like that all the time in the real world, but it's usually impossible in the digital world.

Re:So what is it?

[whiteboy86]

a VC trap

Freebase

[Jimmy King]

It sounds like Freebase to me, which has been around for years.