Re: What is a semantic web application

Ehsan,

On 6 Dec 2007, at 13:59, Ehsan Sadeghi wrote:
> I have been trying to understand the difference betweeb normal web  
> applications and semantic web applications. I have tried different  
> places and books but I have become more confused.

I understand your confusion! It's impossible to clearly define the  
difference. That's because the term “Semantic Web” means different  
things to different people, and the meaning also changes over time, as  
new technologies emerge.

Let me propose some categories of applications that are more easily  
defined.

1. Applications that add more semantics to the Web. This is about Web  
technologies that go beyond simple HTML towards more structured data  
on the Web, such as those examples cdr has pointed out: tagging, Atom,  
microformats, and so on.

2. Applications that use the W3C's Semantic Web technologies. W3C's  
standards like RDF, RDF Schema, OWL, SPARQL, RDFa, GRDDL, and so on  
have been developed to improve the Web, but some of them have proven  
to be quite useful outside of the Web, e.g. in data integration and  
data management. Therefore many interesting applications in this  
category don't actually have anything to do with the Web.

3. Applications that use W3C's standards to create “the” Semantic Web.  
This includes applications that publish or consume RDF data (e.g. FOAF  
data and SIOC data) on the Web. Other examples include “webby” RDF- 
using applications such as DBpedia or Revyu. I guess this category is  
more or less the intersection of categories 1 and 2.

These categories are purely my own invention, don't take this as any  
sort of “official” classification.

> If a system uses RDF

Then it's in my category 2.

> or an agent system

That doesn't make it fit in any of my categories yet.

> or an ontology

If it's an OWL ontology, then it's in my category 2.

> does that make it a semantic web application? or a semantic web  
> application is an application that creates a network of logically  
> connected data/resource with any means?

If it's for the purpose of making the web more structured and data- 
rich, then it's in my category 1. Otherwise, I wouldn't call this a  
Semantic Web application. Almost any application involves “networks of  
logically connected data”. We have to set the bar a bit higher ;-)

Hope that helps a little bit.

All the best,
Richard


> lets say with a database.
>
> with regards,
> Ehsan Sadeghi
> -- 
> Using Opera's revolutionary e-mail client: http://www.opera.com/mail/
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>
>

Received on Friday, 7 December 2007 12:15:19 UTC