Re: How will the semantic web emerge: SPARQL end point and $$€€

Thanks Danny, I like the word catalyst. Yes a SPARQL end point of a  
few big valuble databases is most likely in my opinion to be the  
first big catalyst, that will make everyone go aha!. The reason I  
think this is because it is relatively easy for individual actors to  
get these things done by themselves, without needing too much  
coordination with other players.  And SPARQL + Ontologies make it  
much easier to put such services online. And also much easier to  
understand how these things are meant to work.

All the other services and uses of RDF are very important of course,  
and in the long term could outstrip the above use. It is just that  
getting many people to agree on something takes time. When more  
people play with the above, we will have a lot more people (like me)  
suddenly seeing applications of RDF all over the place.

As I pointed out on this list a few days ago if the linux crowd  
wanted to create an improved version of apple's Spotlight they could  
not do better than use SPARQL and metadata file system [1]. This  
would be really big. But again there are a lot of actors that need to  
see the light.

The more I think of RDF the more uses I see for it :-)

Henry Story


[1] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/semantic-web/2005Dec/0118

On 21 Dec 2005, at 20:18, Danny Ayers wrote:

> What I'm not so sure about with the original subject field is the
> implication that the emergence will have a clear, single originating
> path. There's the SPARQL endpoint side that Henry's talking about - if
> one or two big players provided such things, that could be a major
> catalyst. But equally, let's say someone wanted to write a desktop
> interface using WinFS to Google Base - RDF could well be in the frame,
> and such a tool could be popular. I would be very surprised if there
> weren't a few commercial concerns with their eye on PiggyBank. Or what
> about an enterprise management system using Oracle's new RDF store?
> Any of these islands /could/ turn viral, or may we'll just see gradual
> bridge-building.

Received on Wednesday, 21 December 2005 19:44:30 UTC