How to become an entity? Create Freebase topic!

What? Are we individuals not already a kind of entity? Sure, but... Google would say - not enough, it lacks something important. Yes, if you not forget about rel="author", if you publish something, you are on the good way to become a real machine-readable entity. It remains just a little step to be affiliated in the community of the Knowledge Graph entities: yes, i mean your entry in Freebase.

Why is Freebase entry important?

Freebase is, like, Wikipedia the source of the Knowledge Graph. AJ Kohn has shortly published his view on the Knowledge Graph optimization, but Freebase was not the topic of this article. So i fill the gap and describe the actually simple procedure of becoming an entity in Freebase.

Need i say, why is it important to make an entry in Freebase? Well, if you ever tried to publish something about your person, business, thing of interest or website, which you optimize for Google, in Wikipedia, you know about all obstacles on your way to the valuable link from Wikipedia. Note: Freebase is open to all, and you can publish there all topics you mean important (and need SEO). Only if the topic already exists, Freebase notifies you on trying to establish a redundant entry.

Why is such link and, in general, a Freebase entry, valuable? Cause Google takes data for the Knowledge Graph and One Box from Wikipedia. Freebase is the similar source. Why i'm so sure? Look, to serve right answers Google needs clearly decide, what's the question's topic. To do so, it needs to disambiguate, whether the question is about for example apple the fruit or Apple the firm. Freebase is the database of entities, which helps Google on such disambiguations. In this video Shawn Simister, a Google and Freebase developer gives extended explanation, why is Freebase is an important source of Google's Knowledge Graph. Enough talking, let's do:

How to add business or person to freebase

Create Freebase topic entry

Go to the Freebase site, https://www.freebase.com, and open an account. Open it, verify it, log in and go create a Freebase topic. You get a screen, where you can only insert the name of the topic and go further.

Adding base property values

Well done! You entity is created! On the next page you see your newly created topic (don't forget to bookmark the URL to this page - this is THE URL to your entity, something like https://www.freebase.com/m/0_y3lcl). Below you have some properties - you can create values, edit and delete. If you add a property value, you get suggestions as autocompletion, which you can select or not. If the value you want to add doesn't drop down as suggestion, so select the option "create new". For each property you might add so much values you wish.
Note: adding images to freebase topics is no longer possible due to potential copyrihts violations / not compatible image's licenses, means here Brendan Neutra, a Freebase developer.

Adding additional types

Suppose, you created a topic about you as person. In the base configuration of the topic creation you haven't much describing options. But you are able to add an additional describing type. On the right screen side you see label "Types" and a textbox labeled "add type". Type into the textbox some signs of the word "person" and you get a suggestion about the type "people/person". Select this type and you will get an alert "Person is not asserted on this topic. Assert this type now?"

Click OK and you get after your base topic properties the properties from type "person". After you added values you can add to your topic new type called "Profession" and play the add-values-game again. If you add a topic about your internet site, dd values to the base topic's properties, than type into "add type"-textbox a word "Blog"  and you will add a new describing type "Blog" with its own properties to your topic.

Congrats! You are no longer nameless string, but a substantial entity with own Freebase entry ;) Till now don't forget to actively contribute to Freebase.