Hieplp's blog.: What Is The Semantic Web?

What Is The Semantic Web?

Don’t you just love articles that start out as questions? If you don’t know the answer, you feel compelled to read the article to satisfy your curious nature. If you clicked on this article for the short answer, we will use a quote from one of the most comprehensive Semantic Web articles on the Internet that appeared in Scientific American a few years ago “”The Semantic Web is not a separate Web but an extension of the current one, in which information is given well-defined meaning, better enabling computers and people to work in cooperation. The first steps in weaving the Semantic Web into the structure of the existing Web are already under way. In the near future, these developments will usher in significant new functionality as machines become much better able to process and “understand” the data that they merely display at present.” — Tim Berners-Lee, James Hendler, Ora Lassila, The Semantic Web, Scientific American, May 2001. While this article was written a few years ago, it did a great job in defining the Semantic Web. It also serves as a nice baseline to show you how far the Semantic Web has come in just a short period of time. To get you the latest information available on the Semantic Web, we turned to Chris Sukornyk (see photo at right), Founder and President of Semaview, a company who makes the Semantic Web their business.

1) Chris, why is the Semantic Web important? The Semantic Web provides the foundation on which we can build more intelligent Internet applications. It will help everyone find, organize, collect, use and share information more easily. With the Semantic Web, web pages contain machine understandable information that allows our computers to do more interesting things with the data. For example, if I find someone’s contact details on a semantic webpage, perhaps my contact manager would let me add that contact with one click. Thereafter, my contact manager would automatically connect with that semantic web page to check for any updates to the contact information.

2) Where do you see the future potential of the Semantic Web? I believe the truly exciting potential for the Semantic Web is personal information management. For instance, my digital camera alone produces about 5 gigs of data a year, and I have other personal information that’s currently locked in various silos, but I can’t organize and share it easily. The Semantic Web will help solve the information overload we all often feel. It will allow us to organize, share and integrate personal information a lot easier.

3) Is the Semantic Web the only way to solve the information silo problem? There are other ways to get information out of these silos. The simplest solution is to create standard data formats, such as those built using XML. And for very simple types of information this is the easiest way to share it; however, it is rare to find a standard that meets everyone’s needs. With the Semantic Web on the other hand, you can create your own standards, yet easily and seamlessly integrate other information as if it were all the same standard.

4) What needs to happen to reach the full potential of the Semantic Web? A very basic Semantic Web needs to be implemented that will solve some key problems, such as personal information management. Frankly, the biggest issue will be complexity. A lot of time has been spent in academia working on the complex issues that the Semantic Web will encounter in the distant future, such as self-describing web services. Instead, we should focus on getting the market to adopt simple first steps that embrace the Semantic Web.

5) What are some of the industries that can benefit the most from the Semantic Web? All industries with an online presence would benefit. For example, the health care industry could improve the management of medical records. Governments could improve the services they offer online to citizens. Search engines would return more relevant results. And personal information, such as personal calendars, would become a lot easier to manage and share.

6) What are some early Semantic Web applications? RDF Site Summary (RSS) is one example. This data format allows websites to make article summaries available to anyone using Semantic Web standards. Adobe is a company that has embraced the Semantic Web. With some Adobe products, images and Photoshop files can be “semantically enabled” to describe the contents of the document or image. This means that search engines can quickly index and figure out exactly what every image and Photoshop file relates to. My company, Semaview has developed an application called eventSherpa. eventSherpa is making it simple to create and organize schedules and share them over the Internet. Our application automatically creates Semantic Web content transparently without the end user knowing it.

7) What are some of the challenges of the Semantic Web? Aside from reducing the complexity issue previously mentioned, I believe the largest challenge is convincing application developers to make their data available in semantic format. However it is “a chicken and egg problem” — the more content available in a semantic format, the more applications that will be developed to take advantage of it; and vice versa. What is your company, Semaview, doing to help support the Semantic Web? At Semaview we develop personal information management applications that allow users to share information in a semantic format. Our mission is to solve business problems, not burden our users with complex technical jargon. I would suspect that 90% of our users don’t even know what the Semantic Web is, yet they are using the technology and are part of the ‘intelligent internet’. Although Semantic Web applications are very new, I believe we are at the beginning of the next generation of the internet and you’ll see some interesting services popping up in the near future. For more information visit www.semaview.com or www.eventsherpa.com Semaview’s goal is to provide people with simple yet powerful networked information software that employ cutting edge Intelligent Internet technologies. Semaview’s products and services are driven by the desire to have personalized and relevant information delivered to the desktop. Semaview’s flagship product, eventSherpa™, is the premiere event management software for the Windows™ platform. There you have it, another Computer Times exclusive. As a reader of Computer Times, “America’s Greatest Educational Computer Journal,” you now have more knowledge about the Semantic Web than the vast percentage of computer enthusiasts. Use this information to your advantage. At the next meeting or social gathering with overly pompous IT technogeeks simply ask the question, “So, what do you think about the new Semantic Web?” Then sit back and enjoy your new found stature among your peers. Until next time, have a great life.