Re: Uploading the Semantic Web into Google Base?

Chris Bizer wrote:
> Hi Frank,
> 
> 
>>b.  No point in being critical.   Google already *had* a central Web
>>data repository.  All they're doing is adding structured data to it, and
>>doing it in a "distributed" way (by asking everyone to contribute to
>>it).  This seems a reasonable variant of the basic SW idea.  The fact
>>that it is centrally *stored* should be just a technicality, provided
>>the data is freely accessible.
> 
> 
> Yes. I think free access to the data is the central point. When I read the
> press about Google Base threatening eBay and other market places or when I
> read stuff like Tim O'Reilly's "Data is the Next Intel Inside" 
> (http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/oreilly/tim/news/2005/09/30/what-is-web-20.
> html?page=3) I'm wondering if Google's business model can be to give
> everybody free access to the data? Up till now, they only provide an HTML
> interface but no API. Anybody a clue if they are going to change this?
> I doubt it and that is the problem.

Actually, when I said "freely accessible", I had more in mind "I can get 
to it if I want it", rather than "free" as in "no cost".  Mind you, I'd 
*like* access to be no cost (!), but there is material on the Web that I 
want enough to pay to access now (like ACM's Digital Library), and I 
don't think requiring payment for access necessarily disqualifies 
something as being "Semantic Web".  The economics will have to work 
itself out in practice just like the technical aspects will.

--Frank

Received on Monday, 5 December 2005 21:32:08 UTC