The World Wide Web has long been evolving towards the vision of the Semantic Web — an extension of the existing web through which machines are better able to interoperate and work on our behalf. It promises to infuse the Internet with a combination of metadata, structure, and various technologies so that machines can derive meaning from information, make more intelligent choices, and complete tasks with reduced human intervention. It is a dramatic vision that stands to transform the existing Web in devastatingly powerful ways.

Continue reading Introduction to the Semantic Web Vision and Technologies - Part 1 - Overview

Ping the Semantic Web, the repository for RDF documents, has a page that lists every namespace they've come across as well as the number of references to each namespace. I've listed the top 20 namespaces and the number of references to each. It's interesting to see the sharp drop in references once you get past the top 5. Each of the links below point to a Zitgist Browser page for that namespace so that you can explore them further.

Continue reading Top 20 Namespaces via Ping the Semantic Web

I just launched the new site layout! In my opinion the new layout is a huge improvement over the old one. I'm sure I'll be spending the next week getting everything dialed in. It feels like I've been working on this redesign non-stop so it's a great relief to be able to focus more on other parts of the site (like Planet Semantic Focus).

Continue reading Introducing the New Semantic Focus Site Design

Uche Ogbuji (partner at Zepheira) writes on Intranet Journal about how Semantic technology fits into the enterprise. This was a very informative read because it gave me a good idea of how semantic technologies and the Semantic Web will play a role in business and enterprise data architecture. He states that although the Semantic Web has suffered a lack of pragmatic focus, there are key areas of the business world that Semantic Web technologies can transform entirely. Thanks Uche!

Update: Since originally posting this entry, I've added a few more blog posts by authors that are responding to posts listed below.

Recently discussion has erupted on the Web over of what the Semantic Web is and isn't, and if we can even create the Semantic Web. Not that this discussion is new, but of course everyone must be heard. Of the 13 posts I list, some I agree with, but others say things I don't agree with at all.

Continue reading Not Everyone Agrees on the Details of the Semantic Web

Microsoft has taken steps in the direction of supporting Semantic Web standards such as RDF, OWL, and SPARQL. While their support is minimal and not hyped very broadly it is still nice to see the them implementing these standards in their software. I also haven't seen any evidence that they wish to formulate a proprietary brand of these standards, so I have no complaints.

Continue reading How Microsoft Invests in Semantic Web Technologies

Nova Spivack posted The Semantic Web, Collective Intelligence and Hyperdata, a response to Tim O'Reilly's recent post about the Economist. I found Nova's response to be very informative. He shared some of his insightful ideas, such as folktologies — emergent, community generated ontologies. He believes that the Semantic Web is all about collective intelligence, and he suggests that the term "hyperdata" could be a useful way to express what the Semantic Web is all about.

He goes on to cover the following topics:

• What Makes Something a Semantic Web Application?
• Semantic Versus Semantic Web
• The Difference Between "Data On the Web" and a "Web of Data"
• The Semantic Web is Built by and for Collective Intelligence
• Folktologies
• Web 3.0 and the concept of "Hyperdata"

Semantically-Interlinked Online Communities (SIOC for short) is a framework aimed at connecting online communities and discussions from blogs, forums, content management systems mailing lists, and anything else. In the current Web, communities such as forums and blogs are like islands - they contain valuable information but are not well connected or queryable. SIOC allows you to connect these sites, and enables the extraction of semantic information from unlimited discussion platforms.

Continue reading Connect Discussions Between Blogs, Forums, and more with SIOC

Michael Bergman of AI3 released version 10 of his Sweet Tools list of Semantic Web related tools! The list has a staggering 577 entries, 35 of which are newly added with this release! Michael offers the list in three great ways. The first version of the list uses the Exhibit display by MIT's Simile Project to display all the tools in a list that allows you to narrow down your selection by category, programming language, date post, etc. The second version of the list is pretty much just a straight-forward list without all the bells and whistles. This can be better if you just want to scan the list quickly. The coolest and most appreciated way this list comes in is of course... the RDF dump! Keep up the great work Michael!

This entry is a response to I will never support the Semantic Web by Brian of d'bug.

I'm getting tired of reading about how the Semantic Web is some kind of pipe dream that will never be realized. The Semantic Web is completely and entirely within our technological reach. People may have been given the impression that we cannot create the Semantic Web because of its complexity, the number of years it has been in development, or even the unanswered questions that still exist for certain problems we will face. These are valid reasons to doubt our progress, but progress is certainly what we are making.

Continue reading Some People Will Never Support the Semantic Web