Re: What would you build with a web of data?

Georgi,

On Fri, Apr 9, 2010 at 10:13 AM, Georgi Kobilarov
<georgi.kobilarov@gmx.de>wrote:

>
>
> well, why did I ask people to write about their ideas for apps?
> My observation is that there are zero real apps using linked open data
> (i.e.
> data from "the cloud"). Not even a single one. Null.
> After 3 years of "linking open data"...
>

Just a little bit of history from my perspective...

This has been my concern from day one! And day one from me was when I
attended the Publishing Linked Data tutorial [1] at ISWC2008! It wasn't
clear to me what you could do with Linked Data, for a web developer
perspective. However, then I saw the Semantic Web Client Library [2] and
then it hit me: Linked Data makes the web appear as one giant database. This
is when Olaf Hartig and I started talking and we created SQUIN [3]. The
motivation was that there isn't an easy way to query the existing Linked
Data on the web. This opened a new problem that has never been faced before
(query execution on a web of linked data), which Olaf has started to tackle
[4] and so are we.

Because ISWC2008 had the publishing linked data tutorial, Olaf Hartig,
Patrick Sinclair (BBC), Jamie Taylor (Freebase) and I thought that ISWC2009
should have the consuming linked data tutorial. In the process of organizing
the tutorial, we realized that there isn't an organized way of consuming
linked data, hence the lack of linked data apps (apps that consume linked
data). So there is a need to tell people 1) what you can do with linked data
and 2) how you can do it! Hopefully our slides will help:

www.consuminglinkeddata.org

We will be presenting this tutorial at WWW2010 in a few weeks.

However, a few weeks before ISWC2009, I posted a question about consuming
linked data apps and that we should get together during the conference and
hack up some apps. The whole idea grew and I organized in a few days the 1st
Linked Data-a-thon which was held at ISWC2009 (www.linkeddata-a-thon.com)
 The objective was to hack-up consuming linked data apps. Honestly, this was
kind of selfish of me :) I have a lot of web developer friends who I talk to
about Linked Data.. but I have no real online apps to show off the power of
Linked Data. With the apps created during the Linked Data-a-thon, I can now
go show off and tell people the types of things that can be done. During
this event, everybody learned a lot. We learned about the current status of
Linked Data, the tools, infrastructure, what it takes to do a linked data
app, what was easy, what was hard. Several participants and I got together
and wrote up a document. We have this on hold but I will now push this so we
can at least publish it as a blog post and share with the whole community
our lessons learned. Some experiences can be found on the linked data-a-thon
website or here [5].

In summary, everybody on this list should go build their own Consuming
Linked Data app! Hopefully before April 26... so when we present the
tutorial again, we will have much more apps to show off!

Thanks!

[1] http://events.linkeddata.org/iswc2008tutorial/
[2] http://www4.wiwiss.fu-berlin.de/bizer/ng4j/semwebclient/
[3] http://squin.org
[4] http://data.semanticweb.org/conference/iswc/2009/paper/research/301/html
[5]
http://sourceforge.net/apps/wordpress/squin/2009/11/12/experiences-developing-a-simple-linked-data-based-application/

>
> There are applications that re-use identifiers, and there are applications
> that use single, hand-picked data sources.  But let's be honest, that's not
> "using the linked data cloud". So, why's that? There must be a reason.
> Which
> part of the ecosystem sucks?
>
> In my opinion we won't get to solve that question if we stick to "linked
> data will save the planet, one day". But instead, figure out which apps
> people would want to build now, and then see why it's not possible. If it
> doesn't work on the small scale of some simple app, how will linked data
> ever save our planet?
>
> Cheers,
> Georgi
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Bernard Vatant [mailto:bernard.vatant@mondeca.com]
> > Sent: Friday, April 09, 2010 12:25 PM
> > To: Georgi Kobilarov
> > Cc: public-lod
> > Subject: Re: What would you build with a web of data?
> >
> > Hi Georgi
> > Copying below the comment I just posted on ReadWriteWeb. Looks like a
> > rant, but could have been worse ... I could have added that if the Web of
> > Data is used to find out more cute cats images, well, I wonder what I do
> on
> > this boat.
> > I'm amazed, not to say frightened, by the egocentrism and lack of
> > imagination of the applications proposed so far. Will the Web of Data be
> an
> > effective tool for tackling our planet critical issues, or just another
> toy for
> > spoiled children of the Web?
> > I would like to see the Web of Data enable people anywhere in the world
> to
> > find out smart, sustainable and low-cost solutions to their local
> development
> > issues. What are the success (or failure) stories in e.g., farming, water
> supply,
> > energy, education, health etc. in environments similar to mine, anywhere
> in
> > the world? Something along the lines of http://www.wiserearth.org (of
> > which data, BTW would be great to have in the Linked Data cloud).
> > Best
> > Bernard
> >
> > 2010/4/9 Georgi Kobilarov <georgi.kobilarov@gmx.de>
> > Yesterday issued a challenge on my blog for ideas for concrete linked
> open
> > data applications. Because talking about concrete apps helps shaping the
> > roadmap for the technical questions for the linked data community ahead.
> > The
> > real questions, not the theoretical ones...
> >
> > Richard MacManus of ReadWriteWeb picked up the challenge:
> > http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/web_of_data_what_would_you_
> > build.php
> >
> > Let's be creative about stuff we'd build with the web of data. Assume the
> > Linked Data Web would be there already, what would build?
> >
> > Cheers,
> > Georgi
> >
> > --
> > Georgi Kobilarov
> > Uberblic Labs Berlin
> > http://blog.georgikobilarov.com
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > Bernard Vatant
> > Senior Consultant
> > Vocabulary & Data Engineering
> > Tel:       +33 (0) 971 488 459
> > Mail:     bernard.vatant@mondeca.com
> > ----------------------------------------------------
> > Mondeca
> > 3, cité Nollez 75018 Paris France
> > Web:    http://www.mondeca.com
> > Blog:    http://mondeca.wordpress.com
> > ----------------------------------------------------
>
>
>