Meta ULC
Founded2009
FoundersSam Molyneux, Amy Molyneux
DefunctMarch 31, 2022 (2022-03-31)
Headquarters
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Area served
Academia, government, publishing, industry
ServicesScientific knowledge network powered by machine intelligence
Number of employees
350
Websitemeta.org

Meta ULC was a Canadian unlimited liability corporation performing big data analysis of scientific literature, which was acquired by the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative and shut down in 2021, effective in 2022.[1]

History

Beginning

Meta Inc., formerly Sciencescape Inc.,[2] was founded in 2010 by Sam and Amy Molyneux. Before co-founding Meta, Sam Molyneux studied cancer genomics at the Ontario Cancer Institute at Princess Margaret Hospital in Toronto.[3][4] The service was developed with the intention of curating the millions of articles in the area of academic publishing.[5][6][7][4][8][9]

The company was headquartered in Redwood City, California[10] (formerly Toronto, Ontario, Canada[5]) and operated Meta Science, a literature discovery platform.[6][7][3]

As of September 2016, Meta had analyzed over 26 million papers and profiled 14 million researchers.[11] Using natural language processing, Meta scans articles - as well as the millions of articles stored in open-access repositories - collecting information about authors, citations and topics. Participating publishers receive exposure for their journals in return.[12] These include the American Medical Association, BioMed Central, Elsevier, Karger, SAGE Publishing, Taylor & Francis, Wolters Kluwer, and the Royal Society.[13][14] The technology for the platform was developed via a joint partnership between Meta and SRI International.[15]

Merge with Chan Zuckerberg Initiative

Meta merged with the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative in 2017, marking the Initiative's first acquisition.[16]

Shutdown

On October 28, 2021, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative announced the sunset of Meta, with a proposed shutdown date of March 31, 2022.[1]

Features and specifications

Meta includes coverage of the biomedical sciences with real-time updates from PubMed and other sources.[17] The website provides access to over 22 million papers with publication dates as early as the 1800s.[8][9] By sifting through papers and learning from user behavior, the service pinpoints key pieces of research and provides relevant search results.[6] Meta also provides visualizations about a field of research by organizing papers by their date of publication and citation count and then presenting the information in a way that allows users to quickly identify key historical papers.[3]

The Meta Science research platform uses algorithms that allow users to sort new publications according to subject matter.[5] Users can subscribe to feeds for areas of research including biology, genes, diseases, genetic disorders, drugs, people, labs & institutes, and journals.[5][4][18]

References

  1. 1 2 Chan Zuckerberg Science Initiative, Meta Transition, retrieved October 28, 2021
  2. ↑ "Meta Launches Universal Machine Intelligence Platform to Unite the Fragmented Scientific Information Ecosystem". MarketWatch. November 3, 2015. Retrieved May 8, 2018.
  3. 1 2 3 The Data Visualizers, MaRS Commons Magazine, retrieved January 12, 2014
  4. 1 2 3 Mashoka Maimona (June 13, 2013), Tech companies make final pitches at Extreme Startups 2013 demo day, Financial Post, retrieved January 12, 2014
  5. 1 2 3 4 Darrell Etherington (June 16, 2013), Sciencescape Wants To Solve Academic Research Discoverability, Deal With The Noise Problem, TechCrunch, retrieved January 12, 2014
  6. 1 2 3 Sciencescape aims to sift through snowballing science research, Wired.co.uk, retrieved January 12, 2014
  7. 1 2 Candice So (June 13, 2013), Sciencescape cataloguing research papers everywhere, one essay at a time, itbusiness.ca, retrieved January 12, 2014
  8. 1 2 Hazman Aziz (June 26, 2013), Sciencescape -- A new kid on the block, Hazman Labs, inc, archived from the original on July 3, 2013, retrieved January 12, 2014
  9. 1 2 Vaibhav (June 18, 2013), Sciencescape in the Future of Scientific Research, TechnoGiants, retrieved January 12, 2014
  10. ↑ Chan Zuckerberg Initiative signs lease in Lane Partners' new Redwood City building, San Francisco Business Times, January 25, 2017, retrieved October 31, 2018
  11. ↑ About Meta, Meta, September 13, 2016, retrieved September 13, 2016
  12. ↑ Carl Straumsheim (May 10, 2016), Predictive Analytics for Publishing, Inside Higher Ed, retrieved September 12, 2016
  13. ↑ Teri Tan (April 29, 2016), Digital Solutions in India 2016: Big Data and AI with Meta, Publishers Weekly, retrieved September 12, 2016
  14. ↑ Partners, Meta, September 12, 2016, retrieved September 12, 2016
  15. ↑ "Chan Zuckerberg Initiative makes first buy, a Canadian artificial intelligence startup". www.bizjournals.com. January 26, 2017. Retrieved 2018-03-16.
  16. ↑ "Chan Zuckerberg Initiative acquires and will free up science search engine Meta – TechCrunch". techcrunch.com. 23 January 2017. Retrieved 2018-03-14.
  17. ↑ Darrell Etherington (June 13, 2013), Extreme Startups Demo Day Wrap Up: Canadian Startups Make A Strong Showing, TechCrunch, retrieved January 12, 2014
  18. ↑ Under The Hood, Sciencescape.org, retrieved January 12, 2014
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