4 Responses

1. Andrew Albert Peterson Says:
   April 15th, 2007 at 6:16 am

   Hi Paul. Love the podcast.

   Here’s a thought. I thought I’d run it by you.

   Every day, as I read blogs on the Semantic Web and look over the shoulders of the folks in various workgroups who are trying to flesh out all the different subsets of RDF etc, I can’t help it think:

   Wouldn’t the efforts of all the folks in the various Semantic Web development groups stand to benefit from using some of the standards in the meantime?

   If everyone involved just jumped on board with a few of the more stable forms of SW data structure, wouldn’t there be new possibilities for accelerating the development of the SW itself? Maybe a Firefox plugin that sniffs for RDF and adds browsing functionality to research being done within and across the various development communities would be helpful?

   If there’s some way that Semantic Web technologies could be helping to speed up the building of the Semantic Web, I find it terribly ironic that it is not already happening.

   Right?

2. Danny Says:
   April 16th, 2007 at 8:02 pm

   taking the liberty of answering for Paul
   Andrew, what standards do you have in mind? The core SW specs (RDF, RDFS & OWL) date from 2004 (RDF & RDFS actually being about 5 years older, but the 2004 versions are the ones everyone uses), some of the foundations (HTTP & URIs) are much older. Of the standards mentioned in the podcast I think only RDFa and GRDDL are new, and they’re based on HTML & XSLT.

   There are at least a couple of projects involving Firefox plugins - PiggyBank springs to mind, also check out RDF Browsers.

   Good point about acceleration. Personally I reckon that the use of SW tech is approaching a virtuous cycle of helping build the thing (erring on the side of caution). I am convinced there’s now the necessary momentum, but I don’t think there’s yet enough feedback for runaway acceleration. There’s still a lot more could be done to exploit the info across the blogosphere, but I’m sure a lot of that is already on the way. Things like the work being done on bug ontologies might also help…

3. Paul Miller Says:
   April 16th, 2007 at 8:11 pm

   Danny - I just knew you’d get bug ontologies in there somewhere…
   Andrew, I think we are seeing quite a lot of examples of Semantic Web technologies being used in anger, both inside various corporations (IBM, for example) and in a multitude of research projects. The ‘problem’ is that many of these efforts (deliberately, pragmatically, or accidentally) are fairly tightly scoped, without quite so much visibility outside of their peer group as perhaps they deserve. I know that I’d certainly be happy to raise the profile on some of these efforts in future podcasts, if any of them want to get in touch.

   Part of the shift I see, as the pace accelerates, is more involvement by ‘Semantic Web companies’ such as Garlik, Eric’s Zepheira, Metaweb, Radar Networks, etc. They are betting their business on Semantic Web technologies, and therefore making an awful lot more noise about them than more traditional corporations that are just getting on with the day job, deploying SemWeb where appropriate.

   Some of the noise being made by the new companies is undoubtedly spin and hype (everyone can be guilty of that from time to time), but there’s also a gradual raising of both awareness and expectations that is to the advantage of everyone involved in this area; so long as we don’t over promise too much.

4. Andrew Albert Peterson Says:
   April 17th, 2007 at 6:51 am

   Uh-oh.

   OK, well I really hope I’m not coming too far out of left field here. And let just make the disclaimer that I’m not a developer and I have a pretty limited understanding of programming languages. That said, I understand how the widespread use of URI’s and RDF (and its babies) could really make a sea change in how collaboration happens.

   Here’s what I don’t get:
   If Data is to be ultimately database-ized by the existance of URI’s together in Triples, it seems to me like Predicate URIs are going to be some of the hardest for the world at large to nail down, along with abstract resouces like God or Love. But within the SW development communities, there is a higher density of definitions for abstract things that can be agreed upon, or at least it seems like there must be.

   When someone mentions ‘Identity’ in the context of FOAF, they’re talking about the same ‘Identity’ as when it’s mentioned in the context of SIOC. I’m sure there are many other examples that could be made of scenarios where different groups involved in the development of the Semantic Web have already, practically unknowingly (?), agreed on definitions for abstract things. Why are there not URIs for those things?

   And since ‘Indentity,’ and other Things do have specific meanings within these contexts, how come I cannot already browse or navigate the development taking place throughout these groups in a more intelligent, semantic-web-y way? I’m still looking at HTML. Where’s the database view?

   Google, Technorati and my Feed-reader aren’t doing it for me any more. It seems like there must be some way to harmonize all the right hands and left hands in the discussion, especially since it’s a discussion about doing just that very thing.
   I must be over-simplifying. And I’m definitely over zealous. Forgive me. And thanks for all the information.

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