The Knowledge Graph: How One Link Leads to Another
We exist in giant components of networks and connected by shared experiences. From Facebook’s display of mutual friends to LinkedIn’s “people you may know” feature, the Internet makes the saying “it’s a small world” incredibly real. In 2012, Google contributed to the realization of interconnectedness by creating the Knowledge Graph as well as a game illustrating a bit of its potential.
The article referenced in this post touches upon users’ ability to Google search the Bacon number of various famous individuals. A Bacon number is the number of degrees of separation one is from the actor Kevin Bacon. This game demonstrates the Web’s power as a network and surfacing potentially buried or less apparent connections. As for the Knowledge Graph, developers have made the words in people’s searches more meaningful, drawing upon the words’ information and locations in the networks to also pull up its related nodes or web pages.
Google is essentially handing users relevant ties and information, bringing clarity to how one concept may relate to many others. It is amazing how online links can almost effortlessly interweave web pages that contain information on what would otherwise appear unassociated.
Article About Bacon Numbers:
http://mobile.nytimes.com/blogs/bits/2012/09/14/need-ryan-goslings-bacon-number-ask-google/?referer=
Information About the Knowledge Graph:
https://www.google.com/intl/es419/insidesearch/features/search/knowledge.html