Discussions about the semantic web have certainly been around longer than web 2.0. I always felt the irony of a term that included the word “semantic” was that its definition always seemed a bit fuzzy to me or perhaps illusive. In the past think I understand it and then it would be hard to make it concrete. I have even done consulting to a Spanish firm on market positioning in the early 00s that considered itself in this space and used RDF. We had some great conversations over dinners in Madrid. I see that it is still around but I have not kept up with them.
Now some people are calling the semantic web – web 3.0. Not surprisingly, others are objecting. The term Web 2.0 filled a need to describe something very concrete that did not have a good name. In the case of the semantic web, there is already a name so I do not see the need for another terms, especially one that will seem like hype to many.
Marta Strickland did a very good post, What the Semantic Web -- or Web 3.0 -- Can Do for Marketers, a while back (11/24/08) that I saved and have been meaning to post and reflect. This is mainly for my own education so it you are an expert on the semantic web jump to the comment field and offer your definition. If not, here is a summary of my understanding of where we are based on Marta’s excellent post.
Marta writes, “Right now, computers are good at sending data back and forth but not great at discerning the meaning of that data. Semantic web aims to change that.” She goes on “By using natural language processing and artificial intelligence, semantic advertising solutions, like Peer39, can look at the structure of a sentence and interpret word meaning and sentiment. Semantic text analysis relies on synonyms and relationships between concepts, rather than rudimentary keyword scanning. Identifying sentiment is becoming invaluable for advertising on user-generated sites such as blogs, where you wouldn't want to place ads on a negative post. “
Matra asks another questions, “So how do we dynamically pull smarter and more relevant content into ads? “ Then she offers an answer, “That's where the efforts like Dapper MashupAds come into play. In addition to pulling from a brand site database, the dynamically generated ads can scan social content sites like Yelp and Flickr for the newest (positive) reviews and photos of your restaurant. It's the power of your brand message only promoted by your consumers.”
In both cases what is added is the sentiment. Now you can also use key words to define sentiment so I do not think that is the difference that the semantic web brings but rather how it gets at the sentiment. Marta says, “Semantic technology is able to pull together connections between words and phrases. How often is concept "X" said in the same breath as concept "Y"? This is part way to meaning but I think I need more so I went to the Wikipedia for its take on semantic web.
I found that Tim Berners-Lee had a dream in 1999:
“I have a dream for the Web [in which computers] become capable of analyzing all the data on the Web – the content, links, and transactions between people and computers. A ‘Semantic Web’, which should make this possible, has yet to emerge, but when it does, the day-to-day mechanisms of trade, bureaucracy and our daily lives will be handled by machines talking to machines. The ‘intelligent agents’ people have touted for ages will finally materialize.”
However, he said in 2006 "This simple idea, however, remains largely unrealized.” This is what I thought.
The Semantic Web.Org site states that, “The Semantic Web is the extension of the World Wide Web that enables people to share content beyond the boundaries of applications and websites. It has been described in rather different ways: as a utopic vision, as a web of data, or merely as a natural paradigm shift in our daily use of the Web. Most of all, the Semantic Web has inspired and engaged many people to create innovative semantic technologies and applications. semanticweb.org is the common platform for this community.”
Under success stories there were two examples and there was a warning that one might be a scam to harvest and copy other people’s business ideas. However, they do list a lot of meetings. So does anyone know of real business applications of the semantic web?
There are a number of well known and well executed applications of semantic business things out there. Just for reference a company I was deeply involved with was developing semantic business applications back in the mid-late nineties, even pitching a business plan for a semantic search engine to rival Yahoo in 1998.
Just from that work alone I know of a large national (UK) supermarket that uses semantics to drive their online store, a government department that does something I can't tell you about and a police force using semantics for criminology studies.
There are a number of pure web offerings as well, from the FreeBase's of the world to things like the US Gov announcing just the other day it will be using semantic tech developed in Ireland to help with the drive behind the $800bn economic stimulus package (http://sioc-project.org/node/337).
In other words there is plenty out there BUT like much of the semantic work it is a behind-the-scenes technology, used to enable stuff.
Posted by: BarneyC | April 08, 2009 at 05:48 AM
Barry - Thanks for the comment. I confirms my impression. I have been involved with one behind the scenes tool - iQuest which does similar things,. Bill
Posted by: Bill Ives | April 08, 2009 at 07:28 AM