SIOC Post profile for "AI3:::Adaptive Information"
type: Document
description: A SIOC profile describes the structure and contents of a weblog in a machine readable form. For more information please refer to http://sioc-project.org/.
primary topic: The Shaky Semantics of the Semantic Web
generator agent: http://rdfs.org/sioc/wp-sioc.php

The Shaky Semantics of the Semantic Web
type: Post
has container: weblog
has creator: Mike Bergman
maker: Mike Bergman
created: 2008-03-12T05:00:08Z
content: Let's Stop Presenting a Muddled Mess to the Broader Public Despite all of the breakthroughs of the past year, the semantic Web community at times looks determined to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. It is ironic that the very thing the semantic Web is about -- meaning -- is also the very grounds of its current challenge. Sometimes we look like the gang that could not talk straight. This semantic challenge arises from a variety of causes. Some are based on different contexts or perspectives (or sometimes lack thereof). Some is due to the sheer, tough slogging of defining and explicating a new field, its concepts, and standards and technology. And some, unfortunately, may at times arise from old-school thinking that to define or brand something is to "own" it. (Or, worse still, to overhype it and then not deliver.) We are now in the second wave of the semantic Web. The first wave were those dozens of individuals, mostly from academia and the W3C, who have been laboring diligently on standards, tools and language for more than a decade. Most of the community's leaders come from this group and they are largely the stewards of the vision. The second wave, which arguably began when the iron association of RDF with XML was broken, has perhaps hundreds or thousands of members. Many are still researchers, but many are also tools builders and explicators and evangelists. Some, even, are entrepreneurs. These two groups constitute the current semantic Web community, which is an active and increasingly visible one of blogs, reports, conferences, pragmatic tools and new companies and ventures. Financial interests and the business and technical press are also becoming more involved and active. These two waves -- or however you want to bound the current community; frankly the definition is unimportant -- need to recognize that our communications must achieve better clarity as we make outreach and spread into the broader public. Muddled concepts, akin to the unfortunate earli…
encoded: Let’s Stop Presenting a Muddled Mess to the Broader Public Despite all of the breakthroughs of the past year, the semantic Web community at times looks determined to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. It is ironic that the very thing the semantic Web is about — meaning — is also the very grounds of its current challenge. Sometimes we look like the gang that could not talk straight. This semantic challenge arises from a variety of causes. Some are based on different contexts or perspectives (or sometimes lack thereof). Some is due to the sheer, tough slogging of defining and explicating a new field, its concepts, and standards and technology. And some, unfortunately, may at times arise from old-school thinking that to define or brand something is to “own” it. (Or, worse still, to overhype it and then not deliver.) We are now in the second wave of the semantic Web. The first wave were those dozens of individuals, mostly from academia and the W3C, who have been laboring diligently on standards, tools and language for more than a decade. Most of the community’s leaders come from this group and they are largely the stewards of the vision. The second wave, which arguably began when the iron association of RDF with XML was broken, has perhaps hundreds or thousands of members. Many are still researchers, but many are also tools builders and explicators and evangelists. Some, even, are entrepreneurs. These two groups constitute the current semantic Web community, which is an active and increasingly visible one of blogs, reports, conferences, pragmatic tools and new companies and ventures. Financial interests and the business and technical press are also becoming more involved and active. These two waves — or however you want to bound the current community; frankly the definition is unimportant — need to recognize that our communications must achieve better clarity as we make outreach and spread into the broader public. Muddled concepts, akin to the unfortunate earlier R…
topic: Semantic Web
topic: Structured Web
links to: W3C
links to: Benjamin Nowack
links to: alternatives
links to: Semantic Web
links to: Web of Data
links to: lowercase semantic [wW]eb
links to: Semantic Web 2.0
links to: Web 3.0
links to: nova
links to: Semantic Graph
links to: Hyperdata
links to: Linked Data
links to: Chris Bizer
links to: Richard Cyganiak
links to: Linking Open Data Community
links to: Linked Data Web
links to: kidehen
links to: Structured Web
links to: mkbergman
links to: Semantic Data Web
links to: The Giant Global Graph
links to: timbl
links to: Web 3G
links to: iand
links to: Tower of Babel
links to: 1
links to: Tim Berners-Lee
links to: 2
links to: Sweet Tools
links to: semantic Web tools site
links to: 3
links to: 4
links to: 5
links to: Pat Hayes
links to: Roy Fielding
links to: benevolent dictatorship
links to: semantic underpinnings of RDF
links to: 6
links to: REST thesis
links to: 7
links to: More Structure, More Terminology and (hopefully) More Clarity
links to: structured Web
links to: RDFizers
links to: other techniques
links to: Sources and Classification of Semantic Heterogeneities
links to: ftp.dbcenter.cise.ufl.edu/Pub/publications/tr00-004.pdf
links to: fielding dissertation 2up.pdf

Mike Bergman
type: User

Mike Bergman
type: Person