Contd: SWEO Messaging

All,

I think we have broad agreement that we need to get the message straight 
(which safely assumes we are done with matters relating to Model and 
Serialization format for the most part). On that note, I would like to 
address some of other questions posed by Paul Walsh:

Question: Is SWEO targeting a technical audience?

Answer (IMHO): No

Question: How do I benefit from "The Semantic Web" or "A Semantic Web"?

Answer: In a variety of ways depending on your immediate paint points or 
challenge areas:

Web Developer or User: It exposes the Database aspect of the Web via a 
flexible Data Model.

Enterprise Developer or User: It enables you to make better use of 
heterogeneous data sources when developing or deploying Web solutions.

Database Vendor and Enterprise Architect: It provides a plausible 
solution to the age-old integration challenges associated with 
heterogeneous databases and associated schemas.

Question: Are there any simple examples of use case scenarios for each 
of the above?

Answer: Yes, along the following lines:

Web Developer & User:
You are already exploiting the collaborative prowess of Weblogs, Wikis, 
Discussion Forums, Mailing Lists etc. And of late, you've  started to 
experience and exploit the value of social-networks.  Unfortunately,  
access to the underlying data in the aforementioned realms at the 
current time is challenging even though said interaction should be 
natural. The current excitement associated with Mashups is an expression 
of the natural desire to combine data from a myriad of diverse web data 
sources, but the actual process is somewhat unnatural due to the current 
state of Web Data (hence the term: Mashup).  The Semantic Web is about 
adding a dexterous Data Model and other complimentary technology layers 
to the existing Web so that "Open Data Access" and "Data Joining or 
Recombination" become natural parts of the web experience.

Pain Alleviation Examples:

- Shouldn't you be able to query your collection of RSS or Atom Feeds 
for posts that reference Items your deep but rarely visited Bookmark 
database? Likewise
  why shouldn't you be able to locate all commentary from your preferred 
sources about active and relevant discussions such as Web 2.0 vs Web 
3.0, for instance?
  Do  you really have to troll through your deep Bookmarks database and 
vast collections of  Feeds each time you seek insights from  data 
residing in these personal
  or shared data repositories when a simple query may suffice?

-  You are planning to buy a Digial Camera for Xmas, and you would like 
to acquire the same, or similar, Camera used in a particular collection 
of photos that you stumbled upon on Flickr. In addition, since Flickr is 
such a huge collections of Photos, should you not be able to quickly 
determine from the Flickr Data Source which cameras are the most 
commonly used at the current time?

- Wouldn't it be nice, when reading your email (e.g. Gmail, Yahoo!, or 
others),  if you were able to see related items from your preferred 
collection of web data sources instead of, or in addition to,  keyword 
driven Ads? For instance related discussions associated with  keywords, 
phrases, and concepts that you've tagged as important.


Enterprise Developer and User:

Wouldn't it be nice if you could effectively identify existing and 
burgeoning bastions of knowledge across your enterprise before it's too 
later? For instance,  a member of staff who has a growing Blog, Wiki, 
Mailing List etc. readership and following as  result of his/her 
insights across a myriad of relevant subjects.

Wouldn't it be nice if you could homogenize the disparate schemas and 
data sources associated with your mission critical eCRM, HR, Accounting, 
and other applications en route to developing a truly valuable 360 
degree view of the enterprise?

Database Vendor and Information Architect:

Wouldn't it be nice if you could develop and deploy technology 
infrastructure for making all of the above a reality?

Sidebar Comment:
Social Networking is a great example of the RDF Graph Data Model, but at 
the current time, most Social Networking solutions aren't actually 
running atop a complimentary Graph Data Models (most are on top of 
Relational Databases) which makes it difficult for the Social Networking 
solutions providers to envisage business models that co-exist with Open 
Social Networks or deliver solutions that facilitate deep graph(s) 
traversal.  

Anyway, that's my dump for now.

-- 


Regards,

Kingsley Idehen	      Weblog: http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/~kidehen
President & CEO 
OpenLink Software     Web: http://www.openlinksw.com

Received on Tuesday, 5 December 2006 05:08:35 UTC