Do you have any idea how little it takes to turn Freebase into a social networking application?

A few weeks ago I created a type called Freebase Interest Group and now I’m pleased to be able to announce that it’s been promoted into the public namespace as /freebase/freebase_interest_group

What’s an interest group?

It’s a group of people who have an interest in a subject, a project, or any other common area. You can create one simply by clicking on “Add a new Freebase interest group” on the type page. Currently there are groups for Australian Freebasers, Women of Freebase, Perl people on Freebase, and Users interested in argument modelling. The first three of those are ones I set up as part of the demo, but you should feel free to create anything that you want.

What does an interest group do?

It depends on the group. It might just be a way to find like-minded freebasers, or it might be Command HQ for a freebase project. Let’s say you wanted to rally all the trainspotters on freebase and get them to fill out data about trains: setting up a Trainspotters interest group would be one way to go about it. You’d convince other trainspotters to join the group, fill out the topic’s article with your plan of action, note any types or topics of interest, and discuss the ongoing work.

How do I keep up with my interest groups?

You can subscribe to the RSS feed for the discussion on any interest group. While looking at the topic page for a given interest group, you should see the orange RSS logo in your browser. Just subscribe to “Discussions about (your interest group)” and any discussions will show up in your usual feed reader.

Alternatively, you can “watch” discussions, and they’ll show up on your Freebase homepage.