Re: Introducing Semgel, a semantic database app for gathering & analyzing data from websites

On Thu, Jul 19, 2012 at 9:23 PM, Kingsley Idehen <kidehen@openlinksw.com>wrote:

>  On 7/19/12 10:58 AM, Harish Kumar M. wrote:
>
> Thanks Kingsley!
>
>  Just to clarify
> - Our current focus is on allowing users to *consume* data. Letting users
> *publish* data would be part of the roadmap. For now, we want to get the
> average user to consume semweb data and let the professionals take care of
> publishing data.
> - Publishing would be relevant if users were modifying or creating their
> own data within Semgel. We do not have those capabilities now. And the
> crunchbase data we consume is available from sources like URI Burner.
>  - The application allows you to search crunchbase and add specific pages
> to the database. It's not just about visualization - its a self contained
> database for the user to explore, query and visualize in a flexible way
> (think MS Access or MS Excel)
> - The product segment pages (like this one - http://bit.ly/NkNtTQ) are
> simply there to provide some ready-made collections of companies for users
> to play with. The visualization on these pages are not part of the core
> application.
>
>  Hope that answers you question. Happy to elaborate if necessary.
>
>  Thanks again!
> Harish.
>
>
> That isn't really what Linked Data is about.
> Using your MS Access and MS Excel analogies, when we talk about Linked
> Data, it's all about:
>
> 1. Excel Cell Names (in the form of hyperlinks) that resolve to data
> across networks
> 2. MS Access keys (in the form of hyperlinks) that resolve to data across
> networks .
>
> Here is an example of a Spreadsheet and RDBMS combo doing Linked Data, as
> per  my comments above:
>
> 1. http://bit.ly/NkVEzD -- sparql describe against the 'Facebook' entity
> URI
> 2. http://bit.ly/Qc2GXX -- sparql select scoped to a named graph that
> holds the triples that describe the 'Facebook' entity .
>
> Follow the links above and you get the combined effects of Excel and MS
> Access, as per my comments above.
>
> Linked Data is about this form of fine grained data representation and
> access that scales to networks while also enabling the use of semantics to
> drive disparate data source integration and/or virtualization.
>
> I would encourage you to add a Linked Data dimension to your service.
> Nothing about Linked Data makes it incompatible with functional and
> scalable business models. You just have to take that first step :-)
>
>
> --
>
> Regards,
>
> Kingsley Idehen	
> Founder & CEO
> OpenLink Software
> Company Web: http://www.openlinksw.com
> Personal Weblog: http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/~kidehen
> Twitter/Identi.ca handle: @kidehen
> Google+ Profile: https://plus.google.com/112399767740508618350/about
> LinkedIn Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/kidehen
>
>
>
>  I completely understand and appreciate your desire (which I share) to
see a mature landscape with a range of linked data sources. I can also
understand how a database or spreadsheet can potentially offer fine-grained
data access - your examples do illustrate the point very well indeed!

However, if we want to build a sustainable business, the decision to build
these features needs to be *demand driven.*

As I see it,
- We need to have a bunch of linked-data sources from the data
originators(governments, enterprises, repositories like CB etc.) There need
to be *users who are hungry *to consume this data in all its linked-data
richness
- We than need to build apps that can meet this demand and help consumers
benefit from all this linked-data. This is what Semgel is trying to do.
- We could than, if the demands exists, make the above applications become
components in a pipeline and support other downstream apps.

But as things stand, we are just getting started with stages 1 and 2. The
current landscape has clearly not matured enough to justify stage 3. I
strongly believe that our focus should be on stage 1 and creating a hunger
for the linked-data in the first place.

Harish.