help: why freebasehelp: why freebaseThese features solved the two main problems with the first Entity Describer (described on the deprecated E.D. wiki page and in a Nature Precedings article), the lack of sufficient terms for tagging and speed and memory problems associated with accessing large terminologies with the Connotea-based type-ahead mechanism.
As Freebase and the semantic web progress, we expect to be able to move seamlessly back and forth between these two representations, taking advantage of the Freebase platform or the semantic web standards when appropriate. In fact, there are already a number of ontologies represented in Freebase and we are working to incorporate many more. For example, have a look at a Freebase version of the Gene Ontology.
The other key advantage that Freebase integration offers us is that it is now much easier for anyone to add their own knowledge into the terminologies that ED processes. Before, the only way to get concepts into E.D. was to create an ontology using the rather arcane Web Ontology Language and post that ontology online. This was and is not a trivial task for most people and certainly not something the casual user would bother to do. With Freebase however, the addition of new topics is streamlined to the point that nearly anyone can create them very rapidly. So, if you want some topics or some Types in E.D., just add them to Freebase and start using them! See the Freebase Help for more information on how to do this.