Re: Terminology when talking about Linked Data

Kingsley Idehen wrote:
> Nathan wrote:
>> Hugh Glaser wrote:
>>  
>>> Wow Nathan, that's an interesting set of reactions - we could go off and
>>> discuss them, but I will give my 3 cents on the original question.
>>>
>>> I too have difficulty with customers on the "Open" word.
>>> Open can mean a few things, and some of the posters here seem to
>>> interpret
>>> it to mean open standards.
>>> My interpretation has been that the data is open; as it says at the
>>> start of
>>> the project page [1]:
>>> "The Open Data Movement aims at making data freely available to
>>> everyone ...
>>> The goal of the W3C SWEO Linking Open Data community project is to
>>> extend
>>> the Web with a data commons by publishing various open data sets as
>>> RDF on
>>> the Web and by setting RDF links between data items from different data
>>> sources."
>>> So it is Linking Open Data, not something like Open Linked Data.
>>> So personally I have used Linked Data quite a lot, sometimes as
>>> Linked Data
>>> Technologies.
>>> I take it to mean the same thing as Linking Open Data, but where the
>>> data is
>>> not necessarily open - this is important for a customer that wants to
>>> use
>>> the (whole) technology stack, but does not want to make their data open.
>>> "Open" can really freak people out
>>> I avoid Semantic Web, as that is often received as primarily doing AI.
>>> More recently I have also badged as Web of Data; don't know if Michael
>>> started it, but you do see it around. Sort of a good capture of the
>>> ideas.
>>> I also talk about an application using the Unbounded Web of Data, if it
>>> actually goes out and fetches RDF on finding links.
>>> Finally, if I am pushed to use Semantic Web (ie that is what they come
>>> with), I always say I work in Semantic Web Technologies.
>>> As someone who works on the software, it can be very useful to append
>>> technologies to whatever phrase I use:- otherwise the assumption is
>>> that the
>>> work is primarily concerned with building ontologies or transforming
>>> datasets, rather than infrastructure development.
>>>
>>> I don't think that either Linked Data (Technologies) or Web of Data
>>> addresses your problems that customers think they already have it in Web
>>> Services; I usually talk about moving from point to point vocabularies
>>> towards widely agreed vocabularies at that stage, and through to
>>> unbounded.
>>>
>>> Best
>>> Hugh
>>>
>>> [1]
>>> http://esw.w3.org/topic/SweoIG/TaskForces/CommunityProjects/LinkingOpenData#
>>>
>>> head-277d7f68544ce1a9e252f5c0080b6402cd983a49
>>> [2] http://www.webofdata.info/
>>> [3] http://webofdata.wordpress.com/
>>>     
>>
>> Ahh ty, I can see Web of Data, and Linked Data Technologies both being
>> thrown in to a conversation when discussing Linked Data in broad
>> strokes. Also it had slipped my mind till now but there's always the
>> Giant Global Graph reference too - Web of Data seems to set the tone and
>> paint the ideal mental picture for further communications though (ie
>> makes sense to me)!
>>
>> Regards
>>
>>
>>   
> Here are issue against "Web of Data" :
> 
> 1.  most people assumed a Web of Data from the onset of the Web
> 2.  the fact that a document may or may not host structured data doesn't
> invalidate it as a "unit of data" albeit compound in nature (re. innards).
> 
> Thus, based on the items above, whether its a Web of Documents or a Web
> of Data, we don't end up with immediate clarity re. what the new Web
> interaction dimension is all about.
> 
> I use Web of Linked Data because its easy for juxtaposition re. Web of
> Documents or Web of Data since neither convey implicit linkage of the
> kind delivered by generic HTTP URIs :-)
> 

:-) Even better!

Creating a Web of Linked Data
 - Linked Data
 - The Web of Linked Data
 - Linked Data Technologies
 - etc

Nice and neat, I like it.

Thanks,

Nathan

Received on Wednesday, 17 February 2010 17:29:38 UTC