Bootstrapping the semantic Web

“It’s tempting to draw parallels between the careers of Albert Einstein and Tim Berners-Lee. Both men made world-transforming breakthroughs and then pursued even grander visions. Einstein, of course, never found the unified theory he sought for three decades. A lot of people think Berners-Lee’s vision of a semantic Web will prove equally elusive.”

“We can all imagine the desired outcome: a version of the Web where items are related explicitly, not merely by co-occurrence of words. But skepticism has greeted the “semweb” technologies that Berners-Lee has been spearheading in the W3C. The approach is based on what’s called “ontology,” which the W3C defines as “a representation of terms and their interrelationships.” Critics argue that we’ll never agree on (or consistently apply) an ontology — and they point to Google (Profile, Products, Articles) as proof that we don’t need to.”

“Semantic-Web naysayers think people and organizations can’t be bothered to assert machine-readable facts about themselves. And, today, that is undoubtedly true. But when others assert facts about you — as they increasingly will — the tide could begin to turn. Individual acts of self-defense may ultimately combine to bootstrap the semantic Web.”

Related posts:

1. Tim Berners-Lee talks at TED 2009 on linked data
2. Tim Berners-Lee to give AAAI-06 keynote talk, 18 July 2006
3. Tim Berners-Lee on protecting the Web in the December Scientific American
4. BBC interviews Tim Berners-Lee on Semantic Web
5. Video from Tim Berners-Lee 2009 TED talk on linked data