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Web Redesigned With Hindsight

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the just-give-me-two-way-links dept.

Randy Sparks writes "Tim Berners-Lee has been speaking about his vision for the Web. He proposed the Semantic Web six years ago and it's taken that long for the W3C to ratify his plans for Resource Description Framework (RDF) and the OWL Web Ontology Language (OWL). Effective the Semantic Web is the Web as we know it put into database form and with added metadata. You can read more about it over on MacWorld and see a Semantic Web proof-of-concept at the Web Archive."

4 of 270 comments (clear)

  1. Too complicated to succeed by 14erCleaner · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The web is popular because it's easy to create web pages. The semantic web stuff strikes me as something that only someone with a PhD in semantics could love. IMO it violates the KISS principle.

    --
    Have you read my blog lately?
  2. It does keep it simple by truthsearch · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The semantic web does keep it simple. It's supplimental to current web pages and is optional. It simply adds more data for computers to read. It's something very basic that leaves the opportunity for much more complex things later. Anyone who can't understand a triple - a subject, verb, and object - probably failed second grade english.

    --
    Developers: We can use your help.
  3. Metacrap by fawcett · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Readers might enjoy Cory Doctorow's essay, Metacrap: Putting the torch to seven straw-men of the meta-utopia, on why the Semantic Web will never succeed. His key points:
    • People lie
    • People are lazy
    • People are stupid
    • Mission: Impossible -- know thyself ("People are lousy observers of their own behaviors. Entire religions are formed with the goal of helping people understand themselves better; therapists rake in billions working for this very end.")
    • Schemas aren't neutral
    • Metrics influence results
    • There's more than one way to describe something
  4. sadly... by merdark · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Having access to tons of annotated data is a wonderfull dream. I could see academic institutions going for this, but not corporations for the most part.

    You see, corporations don't WANT you to be able to access data easily. One of the major driving factors of the current web is advertising. Basically, this is something none of us want to see, but with web pages it's easy to try and force us to see it. Properly annotated data would kill advertising as we know it, something the corporations will not let happen.

    Also, corporations do not want us to be able to easily compare data either. Take prices for instance. Many stores have promises like "we'll match any price". This worked on the basis that it's hard and tedious to go check other prices and people will think "well, hey, if they are making this promise surely they already have the lowest price otherwise everyone would be calling them on it". Well, no, most people will not go check for lower prices, and if they do and end up finding lower prices elsewhere, they will often buy elswhere. Easy price comparisons are not something online stores want to allow.

    Ulitmatly, most sites want to force you to look at data they want you to look at (ads). I doubt we'll ever see all web data in a nice annotated form allowing us to view only what we are interested in.