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Is ITA Key to Google's Vertical Search Future?

  • GigaOm, Tuesday, July 20, 2010 11:49 AM
Not that Google isn't getting into the travel business, but GigaOm suggests an ulterior motive behind the search giant's planned acquisition of airfare info provider ITA Software. A few years ago, a research division of ITA started a build-your-own-database tool for web data dubbed Needlebase, according to GigaOm. "Needlebase, which started giving out free beta trials in January, uses machine learning to assemble scraped data from Web sites and other sources into a hosted database intended to power vertical search engines," the blog writes.

GigaOm likens to Needlebase to Metaweb's Freebase -- the other semantic web/structured data acquisition Google made this month. Regarding Needlebase, "It's also built to be powerful and reliable enough for commercial vertical search engines to use it as part of their backend," adds GigaOm. As such, "Needlebase could be a key indicator of Google's vertical search strategy going forward ... Google could potentially use ITA as a way to get into many more verticals without additional acquisitions or major new products."

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