Google acquired Metaweb, a company that maintains an open database of things in the world, in an effort to improve search.

With efforts like rich snippets and the search answers feature, Google is just beginning to make search better.

Currently, if a user types [barack obama birthday] in the search box, the answer will be available right at the top of the page. Or if someone searches for [events in San Jose] , a list of specific events and dates will be returned. But what about [colleges on the west coast with tuition under $30,000] or [actors over 40 who have won at least one oscar]? These are hard questions, and as Jack Menzel, Google's Director of Product Management explains, "Google acquired Metaweb because we believe working together we?ll be able to provide better answers."

Metaweb is also offering a free and open database of over 12 million things, including movies, books, TV shows, celebrities, locations, companies and more. Google and Metaweb plan to maintain Freebase as a free and open database for the world. Google also plans to contribute to and further develop Freebase and would be delighted if other web companies use and contribute to the data.

If you?re interested to learn more about Metaweb?s technology, read their post and do check out the video there.