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Slowly but Surely Towards the Semantic Web

Well this week the web in a small way moved a little closer to the full semantic web as Yahoo announced it’s now indexing for the semantic web and microformats (which is really good to see).

So what is the big deal. Isn’t this semantic thing something the web standardsi have been touting for a while now. Does Yahoo finally joining in make any difference.

Well yes in a way it does, it means that Yahoo are taking the step in the correct use of semantically formated and organised information as a tool to understanding the context of the information that is being indexed.

This means that the search results will be in theory enhanced for those implementing for the semantic web. What is required now is Google to follow suit. If they do this will mean having a semantic valid site will be a distinct advantage. As expected this will bring a flurry of work for web standardsi.

What’s the Semantic Web

However the true semantic web doesn’t exist, yet.

It is the concept on a global scale that the entire web is readable by machines and that the information that has been read can be understood in the context of which it was read.

In a way it’s about publishing information on the web in a series of standard ways that allow anyone (including machines) to read and understand the information no matter what the format. Problem is with the web as it is at the moment is not achievable. As the information is hidden locked in the pages of the web with no allowance for any correlation at all.

One thing the semantic web is not is web 2.0 or even the mythical web 3.0 as Matthew Hodgson points out.

Web 2.0 is all about the people, communication, connection and interaction. The semantic web is about machines, communication and interaction with information in a open cloud of data with no forced interrelationships.

Now don’t think of the semantic web as a separate entity from the web as it’s not; its just an extension of the web. The addition of metadata to the existing web allows, via the use of RDF (Resource Description Frameworks) , to turn the data into structured information that can be machine understandable.

Is there any point to the Semantic Web

The really interesting thing with the semantic web is that in principle of data aggregation of the information. Take for example with a semantic aggregation service to should be possible to search for a local music festival, the predicted weather conditions, previous years reviews and pictures, without these information sources being interrelated directly. All this from looking up one event. This is achieved purely on the context of the machine readable information and the pattern information matching.

It gets better, want to look up all the reviews for the latest book you’re interested in, well via the collected semantic search results of microformats it’s possible to list all the reviews of the book extracted from their places on the web and even provide an average rating.

But remember just because the information is machine understandable this does not mean suddenly it allows for some meta artificial intelligence. All it infers is the ability to solve defined problems via defined operations. Still the machines have to told how to use the information. It just means that we can see what the information is like, in a similar way you can with a database.

So is the semantic web the future or is it still a pipe dream?

Technorati Tags: semantic, rdf, metadata, semantic+web, web2.0, information, machine+readable, microformats

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4 Comments

Kathryn Greenhill says...

1
Posted March 16, 2008 at 9:56 pm | Permalink

I’ve just listened to a great interview with Sir Tim Berners-Lee about the Semantic Web, recorded 7 February 2008. He gives so many examples of how it can be valuable and the underlying architecture that can makes it work.

Sir Tim Berners-Lee talks about the semantic web
Ben Buchanan says...

2
Posted March 17, 2008 at 6:40 am | Permalink

If the semantic web was a reality it’d be incredibly useful. I won’t say we’ll never get there, but I will point out that so far people haven’t had the understanding, skill or attention to correctly use the existing semantic markup in HTML.

So people either don’t understand even the most basic level of semantics; or they’re lazy; or both. So the semantic web has to fight one of the hardest things to fight: human nature combined with ignorance.

If someone doesn’t know or care why h2 doesn’t mean “smaller than h1″, how likely is it that they’d write a document and add the required metatdata to disambiguate all the information? Exactly which John Smith were they talking about there?

I think we’ll get something like the semantic web eventually. I’m really not sure how and I don’t think it’ll be quick. Unless people can make money off it, in which case the SEO consultants and spammers are likely to be onto it right quick…
Myles Eftos says...

3
Posted March 17, 2008 at 9:37 pm | Permalink

What Yahoo! is doing is a start. But for this to be REALLY useful, they have to add an API for their semantic web results.

Say I’ve built a small program that pulls in hCalendar entries for all web events going on around Perth - my program should be able to act like a normal web user, and use the Yahoo! semantic search to find suitable hCalendar results.

Do that, and we have a semantic web.
Gary Hayes says...

4
Posted April 6, 2008 at 5:00 pm | Permalink

I wrote the original post that Matthew Hodgson referred to in your blog. To me the semantic web is not a paradigm shift and shouldn’t be given the 3.0 label - it is as you and many others have stated an extension or more efficient data model.

My original post here makes a clear distinction between 1,2 and 3. Web 1.0 is pushed/brochureware web. 2.0 is the asynchronous sharing web. 3.0 is the switch to ‘live’, always on, synchronous and more and more in ’simulated’ and virtual spaces.

The diagram on/and my post has more detail and it is really based on the growth, particularly in Generation Y and millenials, of isometric and 3D virtual spaces but also the movement towards instantaneous communication whether 3D game-like worlds or ubiquitous video comms.