Lately we've been talking a bit about Web evolution, and right now we're tossing back and forth the idea of grassroots vs. ivory towers. In that entry I described the belief Yihong and I have that the grassroots (developers) will need to take the reins so to speak from the ivory towers (W3C, purely academic research, etc) in order to ensure its adoption.

On that note, I've noticed that just about every Semantic Web related project I see is nestled in the realm of academia instead of being more consumer-oriented and practical to the everyday user. Is this because we don't know enough about how these new technologies and standards being developed for the Semantic Web can be applied to social and commercial systems (i.e. the current Web)? It's hard to say, but I imagine it has to do with the lack of developers working towards the pragmatic Semantic Web.