State of the Semantic Web" - personal opinions?

resending, did not come thru the first time around
pdm


 ----- Original Message -----
 From: "Content-wire Research" <editor@content-wire.com>
 To: "Paul Tyson" <phtyson@sbcglobal.net>; <semantic-web@w3.org>
 Sent: Tuesday, July 01, 2008 2:14 AM
 Subject: Re: "State of the Semantic Web" - personal opinions?


 > Danny, Paul and all
 >
 > Hopefully useful discussion, thanks for opening it up - I think we all have
 > different views of what semantic web is
 > I take the opportunity to sell our bit of perspective

*****************************************PLUG
 > (note our forthcoming workshop below, and please let us know if someone
 > wants to jump on board and give us a hand here
 > http://sites.google.com/site/humanfactorsandsemanticweb/Home)
*****************************************PLUG ENDS
 >
 > I am very interested in the points Paul T makes below. In a way its kinda
 > true, what you say, that at the moment it looks a bit silly
 > in another way it's kinda not true. Let me explain what I see.
 > What I call 'semantic web' is still a bit of a vision (TBL vision perhaps,
 > expanded)
 >
 > That is: I can log onto the web, and using a smart and user friendly
 > interface and query all the data that exists online in any way I wish,
 > including the relationships between data sets. In addition, I can search for
 > qualitative/fuzzy terms.
 >
 > For example: how many cities of more than 100.000 inhabitants exist in
 > Europe?
 > (and reason with the result, for example: for each city over 100k,
 > calculate the ration nr of vehicles per person/CO2 density etc)
 > or
 > How many companies are hiring people with my skillset in the UK? (and
 > automatically parse the emails and send my cv to all)
 > or
 > where can I find the nearest (relative to) producer of xyz goods? (produce a
 > report ranked based on different criteria incl prices)
 > or even more simply
 > How many people on this list are intersted in UI for semweb? of these, how
 > many have replied to my emails, how many I have met already and
 > how many are looking for project partners? (sad I cant do that yet)
 >
 > At the moment, the following problems exist (probably more, but for
 > simplicity)
 >
 > 1. not all data is on the web
 > 2. not all data on the web is valid/updated
 > 3. not all data which is valid and updated is expressed in a format that can
 > be intelligently queried by a browser (that I can download and run)
 > 4. the current data representation and querying technologies (rdf. owl and
 > sparql) are not necessarily the most efficient way to achieve such
 > capabilities
 > 5. even semantic browsers do not offer inteligent reasoning capabilities
 >
 >
 > So I see two sides to the problem -
 >
 > a) one is the data representation. How can I, mere mortal 'business entity'
 > (presumably I hold data and publish it on the web) make my data available
 > and suitable for intelligent querying? Where is the website that can digest
 > my data and produce god valid xml/rdf (external) representation (a la calais
 > type, but even more usable).
 >
 > Lets not forget that organizations are just coming to terms now (policy,
 > technology, budgeting, human resourcing etc) with putting their stuff on the
 > web
 > People are still very cautious and uncertain about web publishing,
 > especially when it comes to business data.
 >
 > Semantic web technology is currently a geeky affair. But can you see the BI
 > (business intelligence) potential in there? If you had all the data
 > available on the web, validated and ready to be queried at your fingertips,
 > would you not be able to save time and money in your decision making?
 >
 > b) the other is building these intuitive  intuitive/usable/robust search
 > interfaces which can be queried using formal, semi-formal and natural
 > languages
 > (possibly combined)
 >
 >
 > As for the requirements of the aircraft, I am not sure a semweb application
 > would be really  be the answer in the first place
 >
 > Requirements for aircraft only minimally depend on the data available on the
 > open web (unless you can dynamically and selectively parse and aggregate
 > from the web an ontology, but thats really a bit far ahead), unless you are
 > thinking of deployment over intranet. Even so, I think what you are after
 > there is a 'knowledge engineering' function (make sure the data/process
 > structure is aligned and synchronised) not sure if I see that as a core
 > semweb functionality, although I am sure it can be used to support such a
 > capability.
 >
 > Just another two cents (I am in the UI camp, ready to work on that front)
 >
 > Paola Di Maio
 >
 >
 >
 >
 > ----- Original Message -----
 > From: "Paul Tyson" <phtyson@sbcglobal.net>
 > To: <semantic-web@w3.org>
 > Sent: Monday, June 30, 2008 11:11 PM
 > Subject: Re: "State of the Semantic Web" - personal opinions?
 >
 >
 >>
 >> What a beautiful invitation, Danny!
 >>
 >> From my sliver view inside a typical American corporation, semantic web
 >> has a long road ahead.  No business man will pay $1.00 for a system that
 >> will tell him that his mother's sister is his aunt, which is about all
 >> that SemWeb101 shows you.  But show him an application that will tell him
 >> if his billion-dollar aircraft design meets all
 >> rehttp://sites.google.com/site/humanfactorsandsemanticweb/Homequirements,
 >> and you'll be in for some money.
 >>
 >> As with all standards that enable information owners to control their
 >> information, the semantic web profit model is elusive.  When tools for
 >> knowledge representation and exchange again become commodities (as they
 >> were for most of the Gutenberg age), the market will encourage people to
 >> compete on their ability to think and provide value, instead of just
 >> charging license fees for locking up your enterprise data.  On the other
 >> hand, since semantic web content is, ultimately, the distilled product of
 >> thinking, maybe license fees won't go away, because it is often easier to
 >> pay than to think.
 >>
 >> The semantic web is what we have all been groping for since the first
 >> computer program was written.  We didn't want text processors; we wanted
 >> thought recording and retrieval tools.  We didn't want computer-aided
 >> drafting programs; we wanted to create models from our imagination.  But
 >> we are still in the firm grip of paradigms meant to encode letters and
 >> lines in computer memory.  These paradigms are huge sea anchors holding
 >> back progress of the semantic web; and they are made more powerful by the
 >> business investment (and inertia) in applications that embody those
 >> paradigms.
 >>
 >> Semantic web is a tough sell.  The business man, nor the common man in the
 >> street, really doesn't care how the application is built, as long as it
 >> meets his needs.  Returns on semantic web investments will be slow and
 >> diffuse.  The semantic web is like the proverbial elephant--a lot of
 >> different things, not the same to everyone.  Part of it is patched on to
 >> the old web to provide additional functionality; part of it is webified
 >> AI; part of it is just common sense (universal identifiers for resources?
 >> what a concept!); part of it is greenfield technology.  So what are you
 >> selling, and to whom?
 >>
 >> Good luck with your article. I look forward to reading it.
 >>
 >> --Paul
 >>
 >> Danny Ayers wrote:
 >>> In brief, some time soon I'm planning to do a moderately comprehensive,
 >>> fairly non-technical write-up on this topic ...



 --
 Paola Di Maio
 School of IT
 www.mfu.ac.th
 *********************************************


-- 
Paola Di Maio
School of IT
www.mfu.ac.th
*********************************************

Received on Wednesday, 2 July 2008 08:38:22 UTC