Metaweb Technologies, Inc., builds infrastructure for Web application developers and publishers. The company designs and builds enabling technology for application developers and publishers who are creating a new kind of Web – a Web that benefits from the power of people and machines. Co-founder Robert Cook joins Phil. Scott, and Ben to discuss the company's work.
Robert first reviews his early career, including his experience with early gaming companies. He talks about how Metaweb was formed and how they developed their plans. The group discusses how Metaweb's work differs from symantic web development. Robert then gives more details about freebase.com. the company's first major project, currently in alpha testing. He also reviews the similarities and differences between their work and Wikipedia. as well as other major database projects.
Robert Cook is Executive Vice President of Product Development and Co-Founder of Metaweb Technologies, Inc. He has spent years building computers, software and video games – and also has the rare distinction of appearing inside a video game. He was the model for one of the characters in Jordan Mechner's game “Prince of Persia”. At parent company Applied Minds Inc., Cook lead led the San Francisco office as Director of Knowledge Product Development.
Since the start of his career, Cook has played the role of an author, designer and programmer for myriad software applications. Cook’s first computer was an Elf II, which used the same microprocessor as the Voyager, Viking and Galileo spacecraft. At the young age of 15, Cook created database software for a small publishing company. He followed this first piece of work by publishing a few computer games through Broderbund. This early work included the classic game Gumball as well as the Atari 400/800 and Commodore 64 versions of Karateka. Cook later designed the game D/Generation and acted as the technical director for The Last Express.
Cook holds a B.S. in computer science from Yale University. During his studies at Yale, Cook started doing computer graphics and distributed parallel computing work on the Connection Machine, which was designed by Metaweb co-founder Danny Hillis.
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