Google’s announcement Friday that it acquired MetaWeb set the web world spinning.

That’s an acquisition that dwarfs some of the other recent ones we reported. If not in dollar size (not disclosed but expected to top the $57 million in VC funding Metaweb raised, according to the NY Times), then in pure potential impact. With some 12 million entities in Metaweb’s Freebase open database of everything, Google says that the goal is to work with its new business “to improve search and make the web richer and more meaningful for everyone.”

Interestingly enough, however, one won’t find the term “semantic web” (lower or upper case) in the blog entry about the acquisition. At least one online discussion I’ve seen has raised the point that ‘semantic’ is a term that Google never seems to use. That’s not exactly the case — it does talk about semantics in search and semantic search. But what is true is that the search leader does seem to shy away from the phrase “semantic web.”

It is worth asking why. It’s not as if the semantic web hasn’t mattered to the search giant for some time now – Rich Snippets supports RDFa and microformats, for example; Google Squared powers the highlighting of fact-based answers within searches; its Wonder Wheel further brings semantic search to light, and its synonyms system is designed to help deliver appropriate results based on understanding ‘like’ words and their context.

Freebase, for its part, is understood to be a leading technology for building the semantic web through contributions to its database by volunteers. These, in turn, help web sites link information across connections of people, places and things.

And certainly, if you look around at comments across the web reacting to the acquisition news, some very thoughtful names in the Semantic Web space consider the event a Semantic Web [and that's capitalized] milestone.

So why not just come right out and herald this coming-together of the search giant and the semantic web building-block system as a meaningful event for the Semantic Web? In its blog announcement, Google says that it will maintain “Freebase as a free and open database for the world. Better yet, we plan to contribute to and further develop Freebase and would be delighted if other web companies use and contribute to the data.”

That statement sounds like it aligns with the larger idea behind a Semantic Web – one where, specific standards and consortiums aside, the goal is for everyone to benefit from smarter data. So, it sounds to us like Google should start embracing the term, wholeheartedly and arms open wide.

If it doesn’t, we’ll have to wonder why. Will it or won’t it? What do you think?

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