Recommendations for *non-technical* introductions to Semantic Web (and RDF/XML) ?

(copying swad-europe list)

Hi

I'm looking for existing non-technical intro materials on Semantic Web 
and RDF/XML, ie. that doesn't assume one knows what XML or RDF is 
or for that matter what the Web/Internet is, except largely in 
terms of user experience. They could assume some experience with HTML and
URLs and Web browsers and search engines...

So I was thinking about this last week, and the odd combination of 
the following popped into my head as a 'reading list' / backgrounder:

TimBL's book([1]), since the SW project is just a natural continuation of
the Web project. The Berners-Lee/Hendler/Lassila Scientific American 
article (although it does geek out a bit towards the end). I also found 
Paul Ford's "August 2009: How Google beat Amazon and Ebay to the Semantic Web" 
strangely charming, v usefully couched more in terms of user experience and 
business case than in terms of technology. Similarly I picked the 
" Statement on the Intent and Use of PICS: Using PICS Well"[4] as background on 
the pluralistic policy context behind SW and the RDF design, even though it 
doesn't mention the Semantic Web at all.

This list is of course not intended to be complete. But rather than going on 
I'd rather hear what other folks here are using and recommending. Remember 
I'm looking for non-geeky stuff, so things like the (imho excellent) 
RDF Primer[5] are probably out of scope, although the first couple of 
paragraphs from the Primer intro would be useful to excerpt for a non-technical
reading list. Similarly, if there are other technical works out there 
with non-tech sections worth noting, I'd be interested to see them listed.

If people have any docs or other materials to mention I'll summarise any 
followups to this thread in the ESW Wiki somewhere([6]), and hopefully we 
can begin a compare and contrast on different strategies for introducing 
the concept of the Semantic Web...

thanks for any suggestions,

Dan



[1] http://www.w3.org/People/Berners-Lee/Weaving/Overview.html
[2] http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=00048144-10D2-1C70-84A9809EC588EF21
    http://www.sciam.com/print_version.cfm?articleID=00048144-10D2-1C70-84A9809EC588EF21
[3] http://www.ftrain.com/google_takes_all.html
    http://www.ftrain.com/google_semweb_commentary.html
[4] http://www.w3.org/TR/NOTE-PICS-Statement
[5] http://www.w3.org/TR/rdf-primer/
[6] http://esw.w3.org/topic/FrontPage

Received on Monday, 28 April 2003 07:08:25 UTC