SAN FRANCISCO--Is the "Semantic Web" the new Internet, or a complex technology in search of a problem to solve?
That's a question that advocates attending the Semantic Technology Conference here this week hope to put to rest. Standards specialists, venture capitalists, computer scientists and technology executives are meeting at the four-day conference to discuss enterprise applications for the Semantic Web--the World Wide Web Consortium's (W3C) growing collection of protocols designed to make a wealth of new information accessible and reusable through the Web.
Attempting to quell widespread skepticism, standards advocates say recent implementations of Semantic Web protocols by large technology companies herald the arrival of the Internet's next evolutionary phase.
Backers of the technology--led by W3C director Tim Berners-Lee, an Englishman who was knighted last year for his creation of the Web's first protocols--make big claims for it, comparing its advent to the dawn of the Web 10 years ago. Just as the Web encompassed existing Internet technologies while adding its revolutionary system of hyperlinks, so, they claim, will the Semantic Web give birth to vastly more powerful ways of gleaning information from the world's computer network.
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Advocates of the Semantic Web say it will give birth to vastly more powerful ways of gleaning information from the world's computer network.
Bottom line: Claims about the technology's potential are being tempered by concerns about personal privacy and technological complexity--and suggestions that the Semantic Web is just a pie-in-the-sky notion. Semantic Web supporter Tim Berners-Lee, though, says that he heard the same notes of skeptism years ago regarding the World Wide Web.
Such claims are being measured against concerns about personal privacy and technological complexity, and against perceptions that the Semantic Web activity is pie-in-the-sky artificial intelligence research that's distracting the consortium from its mission of maintaining fundamental "good enough" Web protocols. What's more, some analysts and technologists who follow the W3C's work closely say that even after years of work and the publication of several foundational documents, they still have no idea what the Semantic Web is.
"I'm not against any attempts to do more sophisticated knowledge management on the Web," said Peter O'Kelly, an analyst with the Burton Group. "But it's not entirely clear to me what problem these guys think they're solving. The simplicity and robustness of the Web we have today is one of the things that's made it so successful. The Semantic Web is not going to be as broadly applicable as the technologies we have today. With all due respect to Sir Tim, there's a lot of mileage left in the Web as we know it."
Berners-Lee said in an interview that the haze of confusion surrounding the Semantic Web activity has a familiar ring.
"It's akin to the responses I got years ago when I was trying to explain this Web thing to people, especially in industry," Berners-Lee said. "The idea of a universal information space with identifiers and one-way links was a paradigm shift. We didn't have the vocabulary then to describe the things we take for granted now with regards to the Web in general. So it is with the Semantic Web."
Selling the concept This week's conference is intended, in part, to familiarize people with the vocabulary of the Semantic Web and sell a business-oriented audience on the idea that applications of the protocols are not only possible, but are already in use by companies including Adobe Systems, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Nokia and Oracle.
Panels at the conference range from "The Semantic Broker as e-Commerce Enabler" to "Ontological Semantic Cognitive Data Measurement and Business Intelligence." Enterprise and government case studies also will be presented.
The Semantic Web protocols aim to let computers distinguish different kinds of data. Armed with those distinctions, applications could more automatically trade information, for example between an online address book and a cell phone. A Web site could automatically reconfigure
So the W3C is busy again, huh? And oh, big news, writing more DOCUMENTS. Seems that writing documents and protocols is all they do. When will we see the first completely HTML 4 compliant browser? One which doesn't add extra tags to the standard of its own. When the W3C writes it, because propietary companies just don't follow the standard. Interesting, though, that Microsoft, known for having added a lot of extra tags and security compromising features to their browser, is a member of the W3C. I think the W3C is a small organization which claims to standarize the Internet, but is bullied by companies who insist in doing whatever they think is right. They invented XML to, precisely, allow companies to do just that: do whatever they want with the Web. Don't get me wrong, I admire Mr. Berners-Lee for his great contribution, I just think the W3C has given to much freedom to companies. This Semantic Web will be just another layer-on-top of the current World Wide Web, which companies will also mutate to their will.
Interesting and provocative post. I wonder how you would propose that the W3C respond to companies that "embrace and extend" its recommendations. When you say that the W3C has given those companies "too much freedom," what exactly do you mean, and how do you suggest the consortium could exercise authority over its paying members?
Rather than complain about those who are trying to do something positive and productive with their energy, one should contribute and assist where applicable.
From my point of view, the ability to dynamically consume services over the web based on a resource description framework is a VERY positive step forward in the evolution of the web. It is precisely this type of activity, removed from the slow mechanical process of human intervention, which will enable all of us to create the higher order operations where the true value-add can be harvested.
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Claims about the technology's potential are being tempered by concerns about personal privacy and technological complexity--and suggestions that the Semantic Web is just a pie-in-the-sky notion. Semantic Web supporter Tim Berners-Lee, though, says that he heard the same notes of skeptism years ago regarding the World Wide Web. 
From my point of view, the ability to dynamically consume services over the web based on a resource description framework is a VERY positive step forward in the evolution of the web. It is precisely this type of activity, removed from the slow mechanical process of human intervention, which will enable all of us to create the higher order operations where the true value-add can be harvested.