The Semantic Web?

[xan]

Here's an article I found which very generally sums up the mood of the research crowd on this topic:

"I'm not against any attempts to do more sophisticated knowledge management on the Web," said Peter O'Kelly, an analyst with the Burton Group. "But it's not entirely clear to me what problem these guys think they're solving. The simplicity and robustness of the Web we have today is one of the things that's made it so successful. The Semantic Web is not going to be as broadly applicable as the technologies we have today. With all due respect to Sir Tim, there's a lot of mileage left in the Web as we know it."

Berners-Lee said in an interview that the haze of confusion surrounding the Semantic Web activity has a familiar ring.

"It's akin to the responses I got years ago when I was trying to explain this Web thing to people, especially in industry," Berners-Lee said. "The idea of a universal information space with identifiers and one-way links was a paradigm shift. We didn't have the vocabulary then to describe the things we take for granted now with regards to the Web in general. So it is with the Semantic Web."

Next big step for the Web--or a detour? (http://news.com.com/Next+big+step+for+the+Web--or+a+detour/2100-1032_3-5605922-3.html?tag=st.num)

[randfish]

Great stuff Xan. I've been reading a lot about the semantic web recently, particularly some papers on how it can be automatically tagged. It sounds like there is a conflict between what many of the IR communities and web search engines want as opposed to the independent groups like W3C...

[Nacho]

I believe the highlight of that article is:

"This is about connecting the data to its definition and context," said Eric Miller (http://dw.com.com/redir?destUrl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.w3.org%2FPeople%2FE M%2F&siteId=3&oId=/W3C+recommends+Semantic+Web+specs/2100-1032_3-5156243.html&ontId=1023&lop=nl.ex), Semantic Web activity lead for the W3C, in a Tuesday keynote address (http://dw.com.com/redir?destUrl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.w3.org%2F2005%2FTal ks%2F0308-semweb-em%2F&siteId=3&oId=/W3C+recommends+Semantic+Web+specs/2100-1032_3-5156243.html&ontId=1023&lop=nl.ex) to several hundred conference participants. "We're moving from a Web of documents to a Web of data.This gives me the goosebumps. We're so fortunate to be living during these changes where global technology and society meet together in related topics.