Re: "State of the Semantic Web" - personal opinions?

Hi Danny,

I imagine you have lots to read. So I'll keep it twitter short and
only comment on the spots where I am ahead of the mob.

On Thu, Jun 26, 2008 at 1:20 PM, Danny Ayers <danny.ayers@gmail.com> wrote:
> In brief, some time soon I'm planning to do a moderately comprehensive,
> fairly non-technical write-up on this topic (for Nodalities [1] - has quite
> a large & varied readership, including Planet RDF :-)
> I'd like to try to be as objective as possible (personal ideosyncracies
> aside). But I'm really hesitant... I want to do the topic justice, but am
> totally ignorant of a vast amount of what's been happening in the field of
> late (and have a terrible memory!). So I would very much like to draw on
> other people's knowledge and experience, different perspectives, even vague
> intuitions on this. In short, he-elp!
>
> Please reply on-list if it's ok for direct publication (include your
> homepage URI if you want quoting), mail me personally if you have
> off-the-record comments - if I use I won't mention source.
>
> The inspiration - last month I had the pleasure of attending a talk by Ivan
> Herman entitled "State of the Semantic Web" [2] (apologies Ivan, the most
> recent version of your slides I could find online are last year's at [3],
> but I think those carry the gist). Great material, but clearly he was there
> primarily in his role as semweb lead at the W3C, though to his credit he
> went far deeper than mere cheerleading.
>
> (I too do semweb stuff as a profession, but I'm fortunate enough that the
> company I work for encourages speculative exploration - if I asserted "the
> semweb sucks!", it'd just lead to further discussion ;-)
>
> Ok, so for this as-yet hypothetical write-up, I'd like to include a few
> success stories, as well as an example or two of things that *haven't*
> worked.
>
> Now a few random areas I'd love to hear thoughts on - some of them involve
> prognostication, but I'll interpolate backwards (!)...sorry, lots more
> bullets than I initially intended - please just pick any that you feel
> strongly about! -
>
> * Obviously Semantic Web technologies potentially have a big role within the
> corporate Intranet. How are things going there?
> (Personally I'm not comfortable with distinctions between "Public Web" and
> er, "HTTP on the LAN" or even "Our Lovely Inference Engine", but for present
> purposes I'll keep my mouth shut :-)
>
> * Money! What's the current status of funding for semweb research in
> academia? Inside big corps? Gov. orgs? Funding from VCs etc?

>From my experience, two years ago the word semantic turned heads with
VCs. I was able to raise a nice sum of money for an enterprise
semantic-wiki and similar projects. I noticed that VCs were
particularly interested in how semweb standards could change the rules
and narrow Google's moat.

I am not so sure if that is the case today. The lack of tangible
results has done some harm... but maybe that's a good thing. We don't
need a bunch of semweb startups raising tons of cash... This doesn't
really help with the numbers and might even harm the semantic web's
reputation in the long term if these companies fail to live up to
expectations ( which is quite probable for any startup in the industry
these days ).
We need grassroots adoption among developers!
Simplification is the key.
New blood.

>
> * What's the range of application of RDF like nowadays? (Obscure examples
> would be nice)
>
> * What is the significance of recent interest in Semantic Technologies
> (those without necessarily having any tie to the Web)?
>
> * How far does RDF+SPARQL (+RDFS) get us? Where might OWL(2) take us? Is
> there any conflict between these directions?
>
> * How have the Linked Data initiatives changed perceptions in the use of
> RDF?

Good. It's easy to understand, easy to show. The database is coming to
life! ( and here's a URL, go see for yourself ).
I can't imagine a semweb presentation without the LOD diagram.
Now, let's developers the tools to use this data and see what happens.

>
> * How's the chicken? How's the egg?
> (aside - we seem to have a decent supply of data now - but where are the
> UIs/hooks into existing UIs/never-before-considered applications?)

Yes, UI has been completely neglected. We need cross fertilization...
and we can't expect them ( UI developers ) to spend months learning
semweb details. We need bring the goods to their door step and in
their own terms.

My 2 cents:

http://www.semanticflash.org/

I will release some demos later this week.

>
> * Has the role of the W3C changed in this context over the past few years?
>
> * Can we still speak of "The Semantic Web Community" as a (reasonably)
> unified whole? Should it be?

Yes, we still can!
And I think that is the biggest problem.... we need to verticalize it.
Each group speaks a different language.
They care about different aspects of the technologies.

Do we speak about HTML community?


>
> * Have the attitudes of the developer community at large changed much
> towards the Semantic Web? (Did SWEO help?)
>
> * How has/will blogging influenced the Semantic Web?
>
> * Initially the Web 2.0 'movement' had little or nothing to do with the
> Semantic Web (beyond the lower layers of the stack) - is there any evidence
> of change there?

RDF-JSON has helped a bit.
I now use RDF to serialize data for simple AJAX applications.
My devs understand it, and actually get to like it.

( aaah RDF is a way to encode objects!! )


BTW: I would love to have a private/secure service from Talis so I
could create apps with thin clients and no infrastructure. Is this
available now? later?

>
> * Slightly tangential - where do you see social networking going?
> (Possibilities off the top of my head - unification of services; general
> loss of interest through another fad coming along; descent into the Web
> infrastructure)
> - supplemental: assume the fad prognosis - what'll be next?

Geo, mobility.
The shape and the reach of the web are changing. And there is direct
business benefit there. Easy to grasp.
Thank the iPhone for that.

>
> * Is there yet any compelling, user-friendly application that is solidly
> based on the Semantic Web (and within that definition I'll include linked
> data and suchlike broad Web connectivity)?
>  - bonus: if I want to show Mom how cool the semweb is, without blinding her
> with triples, where do I start?

Well, give me a hand with semanticflash.org and we will see that
happen by itself.
The Flash/Flex community is incredibly talented ( it's not about the
tech, I want to piggy back this monster of a community! ).

I am planning to create a contest titled: How does web 3.0 look like?
or... connect your apps to the GGG / world wide database, etc

( need help with the name ).

We will create a simple drop-in component to enable directed
navigation browsers. See what happens.

>
> * Of the old layer cake, we seem to approaching the point where some of the
> upper layers don't seem far off being ready for prime time: Rules, Logic,
> Proof. Too optimistic?
>
> * Again with the cake: we know we need Trust - but whatever happened to
> Signature, Encryption?
>
> * Named graphs are the future?
>
> * (Summary of the last few) - are we done with new specs yet?
>
> * Any impact anticipated from HTML5?
>
> * If there was (is?) a Web 2.0 cake, no doubt it would now include OpenID
> and OAuth - how compatible are these/can these be with the semweb tech we
> know & love?
>
> * Not unrelated, there's a fair bit of similarity between OpenID Attribute
> Exchange and RDF, as well as what appears to be a parallel stack to the
> (Semantic) Web with XRDS/XRI/XDI etc. Is independent invention of this
> nature a good thing or not?
> (My mouth remains firmly shut :-)
>
> * There's always been a Semantic Web roadmap - has its destination changed?
>
> * What obstacles are there?
>
> * Event/comm-related things - IM, XMPP, Twitter even - where's the semweb in
> all that?
>
> * Mobile Semantic Web - how're we doing?
>
> * Ubiquitous Semantic Web - how're we doing?
>
> * Jim Hendler's question: where are the agents?

Previous question: where is the market?

>
> * What are the best next actions to carry this Grand Project (tm) forward?
>
> * Loose question - while it doesn't make much sense to say when the Web
> was/is finished (2 hosts? 2 billion?), but barring disasters, on what kind
> of timescale do you think we'll see a significant qualitative difference in
> the Web at large due to Semantic Web technologies?
>
> * Anyone noticed any serendipity recently?
>
> * What questions did I miss? :-)
>
> Cheers,
> Danny.
>
> [1] http://blogs.talis.com/nodalities/
> [2] http://www.semantic-conference.com/session/723/
> [3] http://www.w3.org/2007/Talks/0223-Bangalore-IH/
>
> --
> http://dannyayers.com
> ~
> http://blogs.talis.com/nodalities/this_weeks_semantic_web/

Good luck ;)
Hope my

-- 
:::: Aldo Bucchi ::::
+56 9 7623 8653
skype:aldo.bucchi
http://aldobucchi.com/

Received on Tuesday, 1 July 2008 04:07:34 UTC