Proactive delivery of related tasks for identified entities

A search engine database is utilized to identify "entities", or things for which there exists associated discrete, objective information. For hosted information that is independently available, the entity detector independently accesses such information and identifies entities. For information that has defined potential entities, such as entertainment or lifestyle information such defined potential entities are provided to the entity detector to verify, with reference to the search engine database, whether they are entities. Once entities have been identified, a related task generator, with reference to the search engine database, identifies tasks that are related to the identified entities. Such tasks include informational tasks, economic tasks, time-sensitive and location-sensitive tasks. The identified entities and related tasks are provided to applications, with metadata quantifying confidence, relationship, importance, location and time sensitivity, and the like, thereby enabling those applications to proactively provide selects ones of that information to users.