Re: Concept Map VS Topic Map.

At 15:51 16/08/04 +0200, Lars Marius Garshol wrote:
>| I would say that topic maps can be used as part of Semantic Web
>| technology, and that they are reasonably well suited for the
>| purpose.  I would also say that I haven't seen people actually
>| *using* them that way so far.
>
>That all sounds fair to be, but then what would using anything "as
>part of Semantic Web technology" actually mean? And who does that in
>practice? (And, yes, these are real questions. Just trying to get more
>of a grip on what "semantic web technology" means.)

A good question, which I won't attempt to answer directly.

Rather, this exchange reminds me that I think those of us working with 
Semantic Web technologies (whether they may be ;-) maybe tend to regard 
them as the centre of a universe around which many other things should 
revolve.  Thinking about discussions with potential commercial users, and 
others, I come to a view that we maybe need to turn the question around a 
little and ask what applications can benefit from being combined with (some 
aspects of) Semantic Web technologies?  Or, in this case, in what way can 
Semantic Web technologies be of benefit to applications that use or are 
based on topic maps.

Ultimately, I think that the answers to questions like this will come to 
define what we mean by "Semantic Web technologies".

#g


------------
Graham Klyne
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Received on Tuesday, 17 August 2004 07:46:10 UTC