RE: Google Base and RSS and RDF

Hi Graham,

We also use RSS to carry RDF in our openacademia.org project [1], which is
about publishing publication metadata using RSS 1.0. The widespread
availability of RSS readers (in Firefox, in Google Desktop and Google Reader
etc.) means that the basic RSS elements of such a format can be read by many
with existing tools, while the metadata can be processed with RDF aware
tools (such as Piggy Bank) used by the privileged few.

The piece of the puzzle that is missing here in my opinion is an agreed way
to embed RDF into RSS. In openacademia.org, we attach the metadata to every
item using a specific property we created. (See the format at [2]). This is
not standard as there is no standard... In fact a lot of people add the
metadata directly to the RSS item, just like Google Base [3]. I do think
however that there is a conceptual difference between a news item and the
object it's talking about.

In any case I would be glad if someone, somewhere would take up the
standardization on this and look also at how to do this in Atom and other
XML based versions of RSS. Or we can leave it to Google and Microsoft to
fight this out... [4]

Cheers,
Peter

[1] http://www.openacademia.org
[2] http://www.cs.vu.nl/~pmika/research/burst/BuRST.html
[3] http://base.google.com/base/rss1_specs.html
[4] http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,1894161,00.asp



> -----Original Message-----
> From: semantic-web-request@w3.org [mailto:semantic-web-request@w3.org] On
> Behalf Of Graham Klyne
> Sent: Monday, November 28, 2005 11:50 AM
> To: Danny Ayers
> Cc: Semantic Web
> Subject: Re: Google Base and RSS and RDF
> 
> 
> There was a piece by Adam Bosworth (of Google) in a recent ACM Queue
> magazine
> about RSS and it's broader applications [1].  One thing that impressed me
> about
> this article is that it suggested (to me) RSS (or Atom?) as a carrier
> syntax for
> RDF(-like) information (i.e. something that could map the RDF abstract
> syntax),
> which has the advantage of widespread support in existing browsers.  It
> seems to
> me that this creates a "higher point of departure" for getting Semantic
> Web
> machine readable information used and deployed in the wider web.
> 
> Maybe this is indicative of some aspects of thinking behind Google Base?
> 
> I'm currently involved with R&D for systems supporting scientific
> research,
> mostly bioinformatics related, using Web and Semantic Web ideas.  In this
> work,
> my own preference has for some time moved away from using RDF and triple
> stores
> per se for storing the "semantic data", but rather to leverage existing
> data
> formats in conjunction with SPARQL (cf. Chris Bizer, Richard Cyganiac, et
> al
> work on D2RQ [2]).  Somewhat inspired by [1], I'm thinking about
> possibilities
> of using RSS/ATOM for creating a merge of information from multiple
> sources --
> starting from a conventional RSS/Atom summary of existing resources, and
> extending to incorporate aspects of the content semantics.
> 
> #g
> --
> 
> [1] http://www.acmqueue.org/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=337
> 
> [2] http://www.wiwiss.fu-berlin.de/suhl/bizer/d2rq/index.htm
> 
> 
> Danny Ayers wrote:
> > On 11/27/05, Xavier Noria <fxn@hashref.com> wrote:
> >
> >>On Nov 27, 2005, at 9:58, Jeremy Wong üSãüÁ¿ wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >>>Google Base BETA [1] is available on the Internet. I just wonder
> >>>whether it is a triple store. If it is so, it'll be the largest
> >>>application of the semantic web.
> >>
> >>In my opinion it would be an application of the semantic web if:
> >>
> >>    * Data aggregation was SW-based, instead of, say,
> >>      screen scrapping-based.
> >
> >
> > Google Base does have RSS 1.0 input, which is an RDF vocabulary (their
> > format is broken right now but they've suggested they're going to try
> > and fix it). Their input allows user-defined properties, which takes
> > this beyond RSS and closer to RDF proper. It's a little unconventional
> > in that the new terms appear in a Google namespace, and the input
> > syntax is constrained, but in essence it means they will be using RDF
> > pretty much as designed.
> >
> >
> >>or at least:
> >>
> >>    * The built triple store, if there's one, was accessible
> >>      using SW-standards rather than a search web form.
> >
> >
> > Yes, some machine-friendly route to the data would make a world of
> difference.
> >
> > Implementation-wise, it seems like they've got something fairly RDF
> > triplestore-like behind the scenes, although apparently lacking things
> > like type inheritance etc that comes in RDFS. A month or two ago a
> > presentation appeared on the Web from one of the Google people (can't
> > find link, sorry) which described a database setup that was fairly
> > loosely-structured - I seem to remember every item had a datestamp.
> > Maybe that's what they're using. .
> >
> >
> >>Otherwise formally they may be using a triple store, but in my view
> >>there would be no added value as far as SW is concerned compared to a
> >>regular server-side relational schema.
> >
> >
> > Ok, so their system isn't altogether Semantic Web-friendly, in that it
> > doen't (yet?) provide data out, but they've got it right as far as
> > using Semantic Web technologies to add value to an existing system.
> >
> > Cheers,
> > Danny.
> >
> > (somem,    of that pasted from:
> > http://dannyayers.com/archives/2005/11/23/google-base-and-rdf-take-two/
> )
> >
> > --
> >
> > http://dannyayers.com
> >
> 
> --
> Graham Klyne
> For email:
> http://www.ninebynine.org/#Contact
>

Received on Wednesday, 30 November 2005 14:05:47 UTC