The Semantic Web

Following words on the chaotic and qualitative but fun world of Folksonomies: for those of us that do not have hours of time to sift information could a more machine-based attitude to data interpretation and retrieval be the answer?

Welcome to the Semantic Web.

Driving the Internet to a place where the humdrum, bureaucratic parts of our lives are completed efficiently by machines talking to machines thus leaving us to live the fun bits has always been the Holy Grail. But not so fast. I suggest that the initial problem lies in HTML, which after all is the fundemental the language of the web, in that it was designed by humans to be read by humans. It is good at presenting information but poor at the interpretation of that information.

The Semantic Web however, being the antithesis of hip user generated tagging, advocates that the web should be more designed for machines with information described in a way more amenable to machine processing. 

Presently the concept of the Semantic Web is catching on in instances where the analysis of large databases requires automation. Information intensive industries such as life sciences, pharmaceuticals, defence and engineering are already adopting Semantic Technology. It has yet to infiltrate the everyday on line applications that we are all used to like banking and shopping for example.

The good news is the adoption of Semantic open languages is already occurring with XML largely adopted since 1996 and OWL and RDF growing in popularity. The latter technology supported by none other than ORACLE.

Clearly there are many applications for the Semantic Web. For example say a engineering company wants to purchase another engineering company. Their parts catalogues may call the same product different things. How do you know these parts are exactly the same. RDF compliant databases would allow this with ease.

Yet still no standard bearer or pioneer is prepared to take the lead, drive the standards, commercialise Semantic Technology and say "Let the machines do the work." Even Google is still concentrating on data for humans rather than data for machines. In my opinion I believe it wont be that long until Semantic Technology will become more and more integral to user experience.

As commercial organisations compete to distinguish themselves from their competition and as their customers demand faster presentation combined with more intelligent interpretation of information they will have to employ more machines to satify the internet users ever increasing needs.