Ookaboo

Ookaboo is using semantic technology and information extraction to create a comprehensive atlas of "free pictures of everything on Earth." The process begins with topic extraction from Freebase, merging RDF data from DBpedia and additional information extraction from Wikipedia. The software behind Ookaboo augments conventional GIS (the OpenGIS model) with semantic assertions such as "(The New York Subway System) (is contained in) (New York City)."

As Of Sep 1, 2010, Ookaboo contains more than 175,000 images of more than 85,000 distinct topics. Ookaboo is navigable using CloudMade API maps enhanced with a dynamically generated POI layer. All images in Ookaboo are in the public domain or under creative commons licenses. Metadata in Ookaboo is licensed CC-BY-SA/3.0 Ookaboo publishes geospatial and other metadata with the RDFa standard and also has a Semantic API that can be used by automated systems to use Linked Data terms with unprecedented precision.

Ookaboo is one of a series of web sites created by Ontology2 that includes "Animal Photos!", Creative Commons Car Pictures and New York Pictures and is based on a third-generation technology platform that builds on the previous sites. Ontology2 applies semantic technology and crowdsourcing to overcome marketing and profitability problems that are endemic to Web 2.0.

The name "Ookaboo" is derived from the japanese word 浮かぶ, commonly transliterated as "ukabu", which means floating, like floating in a pool or an astronaut floating in space.