Semantic FocusSemantic FocusSemantic Focus is a blog and community that centers around the topic of the Semantic Web and anything to do with it. This community was created to focus the effort of reaching the Semantic Web as well as serve as the best reference for anyone who wan Articles
Web 3.0: New Opportunities on the Semantic Web (Event)
2007-11-14 18:15:00 Web 3.0: New Opportunities on the Semantic Web is an event being held at the Stanford Graduate School of Business to allow everyone to get together and talk about the exciting issues that lay before us with respect to the future of the Web. The event is being held by the MIT/Stanford Venture Lab (VLAB) will take place Tuesday, November 20 from 6:00pm to 8:30pm and will be a panel session where emerging companies in the Semantic Web space present their different approaches to realizing the vision of the Semantic Web. Cost of registration will be $35.00 and last minute tickets will be made available on the 19th of November. Event Panelists: Robert Cook Co-founder and Executive VP of Product Development, Metaweb Nova Spivack CEO and Founder, Radar Networks Alex Iskold CEO and Founder, Adaptive Blue Paul Kedrosky Venture Partner, Ventures West The panel will be moderated by Paul Saffo, Technology Forecaster and Consulting Professor, Stanford University. About MIT/Stanfor... More About: Unit
Announcing Aperture 1.0.1: Beta Release
2007-11-13 23:49:00 Aperture is a Java framework for extracting full-text content and metadata from various information systems (filesystems, Web sites, email inboxes) and the file formats (documents, images) in these systems. New features: Aperture has been migrated to use the newly developed Nepomuk Information Element Ontology framework. This added a new level of precision and expressiveness to the output of Aperture components. The ontology itself is endorsed by the Nepomuk Consortium, well documented and maintained. The output is now thoroughly tested with an extensible RDF validator for compliance with the ontology. This allowed us to fix a number of bugs that made certain properties appear in places they didn't belong The data source configuration API has been overhauled and is now much more easy to use A new facility that allows clients to implement dynamic GUIs for data source configuration. New JpgExtractor that extracts EXIF annotations from JPG files Four new experimental crawler... More About: Beta , Release , Anno , Pert , Aperture
International Semantic Web Conference 2008 and 2009 Updates
2007-11-13 23:35:00 ISWC 2008 will take place at the Kongresszentrum (Congress Center) in Karlsruhe, Germany from October 26th to the 30th. Information on invited speakers is not yet available. Details surrounding ISWC 2009 have not yet been finalized, however Rudi Studer of the Semantic Web Science Association announced that it will be held in the Washington DC area. The conference is slated to be held at the end of October or the beginning of November.Did you enjoy this post? Join the discussion! More About: International , Updates , Conference
The Object Oriented Web - Part 1 - Backlinks
2007-11-01 09:51:00 The more we use the Internet, the more we realize the necessity of finding new solutions to better organize the growing mass of information. Today we actually have a certain number of tools to add meaning to the information that we drop all over the Web. Adding a comprehensible meaning to computers, allowing them to help us better organize things. That's the big idea behind the Semantic Web, an idea which appears more and more obvious to us everyday. In this field, we already have many advanced technologies, starting with those offered by the W3C itself: XML, RDF, OWL, etc. But I have the feeling that something important is still missing to allow the Semantic Web to really take off. To understand what it is we have to take into account the fact that the Web is in permanent change and data is continuously added, modified or deleted. The fact of having semantic information doesn't change anything, it just challenges the search engines more everyday to crawl the whole Web constant... More About: Backlinks , Part , Object
Introduction to Semantic Web Vision and Technologies - Part 4 - Protege 101
2007-10-29 10:03:00 Today we reach an important milestone in this series. We are crossing a great divide between familiar technologies such as XML, Unicode, URI, and RDF to the Web Ontology Language (OWL). This, my friends, is where things really start to get interesting because this is the point where the Semantic Web vision really starts to take form. Today, we present a screencast exhibiting Protégé — a free, open source ontology editor and knowledge-base framework developed by Stanford Center for Biomedical Informatics Research at the Stanford University School of Medicine. In this screencast, we show you how to develop a useful Semantic Web-ready application in just minutes. You will learn how to model a very simple ontology in OWL (the Web Ontology Language). You will see how the tool empowers you to create a data entry system for ontology individuals. You will also see how to query the data in your ontology very easily with one of Protégé's built-in query to... More About: Technologies , Introduction , Part , Vision
Metadata or Hyperdata, Link or Thread, What is a Web of Data?
2007-10-22 21:56:00 After the last post about "web of agents", I received a few questions about the "web of data." A few readers mistook my argument to be opposite of a web of data. Don't get me wrong, I have never been opposed to the presentation of a "web of data." I only emphasize that the web-of-data presentation is short of describing the human-web relationship in the Semantic Web. To encourage the engagement of more ordinary people to the grand vision of the Semantic Web, we need a more user-oriented presentation, i.e. a web of agents. In order to balance my own arguments, however, in this post I express my understanding of a web of data. The Semantic Web will certainly be a web of data after it is realized. But how this web of data is connected, what the structure of this web of data will be; the answers to these questions are varied to different people. I am glad to share my answers to the readers of Semantic Focus. Metadata , Hyper data, Web of Data When we think of a web of data, two ter... More About: Link , Thread
Microformats vs. RDF: How Microformats Relate to the Semantic Web
2007-10-17 23:04:00 Update: Joe from the Squio blog has posted a response to this entry. Microformats are a wildly popular set of formats for embedding metadata within normal XHTML. The primary advantage Microformats offer over RDF (including its embedded serializations) is that you can embed metadata directly in the XHTML, reducing the amount of markup you need to write (e.g. you don't have to write XHTML and additional RDF). Many people have contended that Microformats are a possible replacement for RDF, however Microformats were not designed to cover the same scope as RDF was. While both Microformats and RDF make it possible to store data about data, they simply do not work to solve the same set of problems. A quick comparison I don't blame the Microformats people for this confusion over what Microformats are or are not. Rather, I blame the sensationalists and know-nots that tend to jump on any new standard, format, or design pattern. Directly on the Microformats about page you are told what ... More About: Semantic Web
Introduction to the Semantic Web Vision and Technologies - Part 3 - The Res
2007-10-13 03:54:00 In Part 2 of this series we reviewed Unicode, URI, and XML - three foundational technologies that permeate the existing Web and that are especially relevant to the emerging Semantic Web. We will put all three to use as we take our next step up the Semantic Web layer cake in a review of the Resource Description Framework (RDF). At the same time, we will be taking the visual RDF/OWL editor, Altova SemanticWorks, for a test drive. Since I will be using this tool for the very first time, you can expect an honest review that is rich with screenshots. If you do not already have the software, you may wish to download the trial version now so you can follow along. RDF is a common framework for describing resources. It is primarily intended to represent metadata that can be parsed and processed by machines rather than just displayed to people. While the resources it describes may be content or services that exist on the Web, they don't have to be; they can be real-world objects like you... More About: Technologies , Introduction , Part 3 , Vision
Link Roundup for October 11th, 2007
2007-10-11 21:41:00 Here's another list of interesting links for your reading pleasure! If you find a site or article that would fit well in a Link Roundup post send it our way! Books on Semantic Web Microsoft Manager: "needed a robust and scalable RDF repository" Towards the Web of Intentions Another mainstream online video app using RDF Web Evolution New RDF Book Open Data Licences Did you enjoy this post? Join the discussion! More About: October
W3C Unveils New Semantic Web Logo
2007-10-11 21:13:00 Open your data! That's the theme behind the new Semantic Web logo created by the W3C. The three sides of the tri-color cube are meant to represent the RDF triple model, and the peeled back lid is suggestive of the main theme of opening your data for everyone to access. For now they ask that you use the images that include the W3C logo, at least until the new Semantic Web logo becomes more widely recognized on its own. They've also created 80x15 sized buttons for RDF, OWL, SPARQL, and GRDDL! I'm not too wild about those kinds of buttons, but I'm sure we'll see them springing up everywhere in no time. The buttons come in blue, green, orange, gray, and purple.Did you enjoy this post? Join the discussion! More About: Logo
Planet Semantic Focus: Aggregating Semantic Web Buzz
2007-10-10 00:27:00 Over the weekend I opened the doors to Planet Semantic Focus , our Semantic Web buzz aggregator! In a nutshell, PSF makes it easy for you to keep tabs on what's going within the Semantic Web community. In its current version (beta) the system is tracking blog posts from various sources and bloggers. Here are a few features to expect in the near future as PSF continues to aggregate from its sources: Community members will be able to mark a story as off-topic, non-English, and possibly several other actions, with an "Action button" for each item. Items will be place into a categorization structure, making it possible to browse items based on topic The current site search will be extended to allow searching through items on Planet Semantic Focus Tags and categories will be scraped from blog entries, feeds, and other sources to assist with categorization Community members will be able to choose tags for items to help increase their findability Each item will have a place for ... More About: Buzz , Greg
The Web 3.0 Debate Continues to Unfold
2007-10-09 22:40:00 The debate over whether Web 3.0 has a place in our buzzword vocabulary is going to be brutal battle between big names with big opinions, as we've seen already. I've already posted my feelings about Web 3.0, and those may change or stay the same. I'm still on the fence with Web 3.0, but I'm leaning towards "no thanks," and I'm not the only one. Recently Tim O'Reilly posted an article titled Today's Web 3.0 Nonsense Blogstorm where he gives his opinions on the topic. In response to Tim's article, Nova Spivack wrote a rebuttal titled Understanding The Semantic Web: A Response to Tim O'Reilly's Recent Defense of Web 2.0 to combat some of Tim's claims and get some facts out on the table. Paul Miller of Talis wrote an article about Tim and Nova's back-and-forthery and expands on his views. An interesting article was posted yesterday on The Montoya Herald titled Web 3.0 I$ About Money. The article includes some quotes about Web 3.0 by industry big-wigs, and even includes so... More About: Debate , Conti , Fold
Link Roundup for October 6th, 2007
2007-10-06 14:35:00 Here's a list of interesting links for your Saturday morning! I've included the chain of blog posts about recommended Semantic Web books, a post by Mike Bergman about how much he doesn't like the term "Web 3.0," and a few other interesting sites. Enjoy! Now Queryable and open linked data: U.S. Census/Congress datasets: 1 billion triples Semantic Web Books Semantic Web book recommendations? Semantic Web book recommendations Adaptive Blue and the Semantic Web SmugMug supporting FOAF and other open standards Please, Squash that Web 3.0 Cockroach Workshop on Semantic Scientific Knowledge Integration Open Data - license it or lose it Did you enjoy this post? Join the discussion! More About: Roundup , Link , October
Abandon Babel, Welcome Society: The Philosophy Behind Semantic Web Approach
2007-10-06 00:03:00 We want everybody to communicate freely by crossing the barriers of language differences and cultural variety. This is the commonly agreed upon ultimate goal of the Semantic Web . How we are to realize the Semantic Web in particular is, however, another story. Typically, there are two thoughts on how to achieve this common goal. One thought is to build a web of data; the other is to build a web of agents. Nevertheless, these two thoughts approach the same goal and represent two different philosophies. This philosophical difference may eventually determine the fate of these two approaches. Same Target, Different Thoughts A Web of Data "A web of data" is a well conducted explanation of the Semantic Web. From the beginning, Tim Berners-Lee and the W3C expected the Web to become a place that allows humans and machines "to start off in one database, and then move through an unending set of databases which are connected not by wires but by being about the same thing." In the Semantic ... More About: Philosophy , Society , Babel , Abandon
Introduction to the Semantic Web Vision and Technologies - Part 2 - Foundat
2007-10-04 09:12:00 In Part 1 of this series, we introduced the Semantic Web vision set forth by Tim Berners-Lee. We also took a look at the famous layer cake diagram illustrating key technologies that make it possible. This week, we'll be munching around the bottom of the layer cake with a few important points about Unicode, URI, and XML. Below, you may notice that we are presenting a slightly different illustration of the layer cake than last week. The intent is not to confuse you, but rather to point out that there are a variety of interpretations floating around the Web. Some versions of the cake combine layers into broad concepts for simplicity while others present more detail or include terminology that is less known to the average Joe (no offense, Joe - we know, you're fantastic). They all express the same general model of the core standards and technologies that can be used to develop Semantic Web systems. If you think the ontology layer looks especially delicious, you are not alone. In... More About: Technologies , Introduction , Vision
Possibilities for Video Games and the Semantic Web
2007-10-03 10:31:00 Before I started researching the Semantic Web I spent a few years as a hobbyist game developer. In fact, if you'd asked me 4 years ago what I'd be doing today I would have said "working on a game engine." I still enjoy game development and (naturally) playing video games as well. I often wonder how the Semantic Web will affect game development, and how games may take advantage of Semantic Web technologies. I've searched high and low (on Google) and haven't found a single written piece on people's ideas of the Semantic Web and video games so I will describe my own, as well as provide some visuals to give you a clear picture. Opening up the virtual social graph Many of you are probably already familiar with the concept of social graphs. Essentially a social graph is a representation of the relationships between people and what types of relationships those are. The idea is to create a global social graph that connects everyone and allows us to explore everyone's public ... More About: Video , Video Games , Games , Video-Games
Semantic Web Podcasts at Talking with Talis
2007-10-02 19:20:00 Update: Paul Miller from Talis updated me with some new information. I just recently stumbled upon Talking with Talis, a blog by Talis that hosts podcasts they've created from interviews with various people in the Semantic Web community. In their archives you can find nearly 60 podcasts, and this number is growing. The podcasts are fairly lengthy too, with most ranging between a half-hour to an hour long. For convenience and reference, each podcast entry lists the sites they talk about during the conversation, which makes following along easier. Paul from Talis pointed me in the direction of this page that lists all the Semantic Web-only podcasts. Here are few conversations that stood out to me: Paul Gearon Talks with Talis about RDF databases, OWL and more Mills Davis talks with Talis about multi-billion dollar markets and the Semantic Wave Jamie Taylor Talks with Talis about Metaweb and Freebase Did you enjoy this post? Join the discussion! More About: Podcasts , Casts
First Anniversary of the Thinking Space Blog
2007-10-02 04:36:00 Yihong Ding, contributing author of Semantic Focus, is celebrating the anniversary of his blog's launch. Thinking Space delivers a unique and inspiring view of Web evolution and the Semantic Web. Yihong expresses his sincere appreciation to all his readers, and I know that you guys like his work as well; Yihong's posts on this blog have received some of the best community responses. If you aren't a reader of Thinking Space you should go check it out!Did you enjoy this post? Join the discussion! More About: Anniversary , Blog
30+ Semantic Web Introductions, References, Guides, and Tutorials
2007-10-02 01:02:00 Hey everyone, I've gathered some good reading material for your enjoyment! If you're new to the Semantic Web or just want to brush up on your knowledge then take a look at the following articles. Listed below are over thirty introductions, primers, references, guides, and tutorials on the Semantic Web, RDF, OWL, SPARQL, and GRDDL. If you know of other articles that would fit well here leave me a comment and I'll be happy to add them to the list. Enjoy! Semantic Web Introduction to the Semantic Web Vision and Technologies - Part 1 - Overview The Semantic Web: An Introduction Tutorial on Semantic Web Technologies Semantic Web: A Quick But Detailed Introduction The Semantic Web: A Primer The Semantic Web Semantic Web Introduction Introduction to Semantic Web Technologies The Semantic Web: 1-2-3 The Semantic Web - Introduction and Overview RDF Dave Beckett's RDF Resource Guid e RDF: References RDF Tutorial - Part I: basic syntax and containers RDF Tutorial An In... More About: Tutorials , Guides
Yihong Ding Wraps-Up "A View of Web Evolution" Series
2007-09-25 11:47:00 Yihong Ding released the 10th and final installment to his series A View of Web Evolution . In the final installment of the series Yihong poses the question of how we will know when we've finally reached the next stage in Web evolution. He did a great job and it's definitely worth your time to read each of these articles. Be sure to check out the entire series: In the Beginning Three Basic Evolutionary Properties of World Wide Web Two Fundamental Postulates Mapping between Web Evolution and Human Growth Identity of Evolutionary Stages Qualities of Evolutionary Stages Trigger of Transition Initiative of a Stage Transition Essence of Web Evolution Signal of the Completion of a Web Stage Transition Did you enjoy this post? Join the discussion! More About: Series , Serie , Erie
Where Do You Stand on Web 3.0?
2007-09-25 10:17:00 I recently read on Network World that Gartner's David Mitchell Smith said "There are a lot of constituencies trying to hijack the term Web 3.0." I don't think I like Web 3.0 just yet, do you? I agree with the Gartner representative that Web 3.0 wreaks of marketing hype, and in my opinion it is a race by people that felt left behind by the Web 2.0 movement. Vendors pushing the term Web 3.0 are advocating the rise of the Mobile Web, virtual worlds, and the Semantic Web. I agree that all of these technologies will take rise, but I don't agree that we should call that era "Web 3.0." Web 2.0 was — and in many ways still is — a rather ambiguous term coined to represent a new design style, out-of-the-box ideas about user and community interaction, and the implementation of slick albeit already existing technologies to revolutionize Web user interfaces. Let's not forget tagging, folksonomies, AJAX, the wisdom of crowds, and so on. Web 2.0 is not a technology, it is a ... More About: Stand
Introduction to the Semantic Web Vision and Technologies - Part 1 - Overvie
2007-09-24 16:28:00 The World Wide Web has long been evolving towards the vision of the Semantic Web — an extension of the existing web through which machines are better able to interoperate and work on our behalf. It promises to infuse the Internet with a combination of metadata, structure, and various technologies so that machines can derive meaning from information, make more intelligent choices, and complete tasks with reduced human intervention. It is a dramatic vision that stands to transform the existing Web in devastatingly powerful ways. It is also a realistic vision. In some ways, in fact, it is already here. Semantic Web standards and technologies are maturing, several tools exist, and new applications are frequently emerging. Similar to the early days of the existing Web, the vision awaits only understanding, acceptance, and perhaps a few "killer apps" that will deliver on its promise and prove its transformational value to the world. This is the first of a series of articles ... More About: Technologies , Introduction , Part , Vision
Top 20 Namespaces via Ping the Semantic Web
2007-09-21 23:38:00 Ping the Semantic Web , the repository for RDF documents, has a page that lists every namespace they've come across as well as the number of references to each namespace. I've listed the top 20 namespaces and the number of references to each. It's interesting to see the sharp drop in references once you get past the top 5. Each of the links below point to a Zitgist Browser page for that namespace so that you can explore them further. http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/ #1 - 846,893 references http://blogs.yandex.ru/schema/foaf/ #2 - 576,208 references http://www.w3.org/2003/01/geo/wgs84_pos# #3 - 142,875 references http://rdfs.org/sioc/ns# #4 - 48,752 references http://rdfs.org/sioc/types# #5 - 39,300 references http://www.geonames.org/ontology# #6 - 4,772 references http://www.w3.org/2002/07/owl# #7 - 3,764 references http://purl.org/vocab/bio/0.1/ #8 - 3,057 references http://smw.ontoware.org/2005/smw# #9 - 2,553 references http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-n ... More About: Ping , Spaces , Names
Introducing the New Semantic Focus Site Design
2007-09-21 11:41:00 I just launched the new site layout! In my opinion the new layout is a huge improvement over the old one. I'm sure I'll be spending the next week getting everything dialed in. It feels like I've been working on this redesign non-stop so it's a great relief to be able to focus more on other parts of the site (like Planet Semantic Focus ). So you can see the difference between the two layouts, here is a screenshot of the old one: Did you enjoy this post? Join the discussion! More About: Design , Site
Uche Ogbuji on How Semantic Technology Fits Into the Enterprise
2007-09-20 23:58:00 Uche Ogbuji (partner at Zepheira) writes on Intranet Journal about how Semantic technology fits into the enterprise. This was a very informative read because it gave me a good idea of how semantic technologies and the Semantic Web will play a role in business and enterprise data architecture. He states that although the Semantic Web has suffered a lack of pragmatic focus, there are key areas of the business world that Semantic Web technologies can transform entirely. Thanks Uche!Did you enjoy this post? Join the discussion! More About: Technology , Enterprise , Ology
Not Everyone Agrees on the Details of the Semantic Web
2007-09-20 22:00:00 Update: Since originally posting this entry, I've added a few more blog posts by authors that are responding to posts listed below. Recently discussion has erupted on the Web over of what the Semantic Web is and isn't, and if we can even create the Semantic Web. Not that this discussion is new, but of course everyone must be heard. Of the 13 posts I list, some I agree with, but others say things I don't agree with at all. Here is a list of the discussions going on right now, including a few rebuttals: I will never support the Semantic Web By Brian of d'bug. Some People Will Never Support the Semantic Web By James Simmons (me). Response to the above post by Brian. Semantic Web: Difficulties with the Classic Approach By Alex Iskold of Read/Write Web. Semantic Web: Difficulties and Opportunities By Yihong Ding of Thinking Space. Response to the above post by Alex. Semantic Web Value Proposition By Kingsley Idehen of OpenLink Software. Response to the above post by Alex.... More About: Details , Tail , The D , Tails
How Microsoft Invests in Semantic Web Technologies
2007-09-20 20:48:00 Microsoft has taken steps in the direction of supporting Semantic Web standards such as RDF, OWL, and SPARQL. While their support is minimal and not hyped very broadly it is still nice to see the them implementing these standards in their software. I also haven't seen any evidence that they wish to formulate a proprietary brand of these standards, so I have no complaints. Interactive Media Manager Interactive Media Manager is Microsoft's rich, collaborative media management solution for pre-production, post-production and production environments. Without getting into too much detail, it's a digital asset management and collaboration system. A common challenge among media and entertainment companies is sharing metadata between DAM systems, business applications, and partners in the content production chain. IMM includes a powerful metadata framework to address this problem. The IMM metadata framework uses RDF and OWL to describe media stored in the system. This allows com... More About: Microsoft , Technologies , Logi
Nova Spivack on the Semantic Web, Collective Intelligence and Hyperdata
2007-09-20 07:34:00 Nova Spivack posted The Semantic Web , Coll ective Intelligence and Hyperdata, a response to Tim O'Reilly's recent post about the Economist. I found Nova's response to be very informative. He shared some of his insightful ideas, such as folktologies — emergent, community generated ontologies. He believes that the Semantic Web is all about collective intelligence, and he suggests that the term "hyperdata" could be a useful way to express what the Semantic Web is all about. He goes on to cover the following topics: What Makes Something a Semantic Web Application? Semantic Versus Semantic Web The Difference Between "Data On the Web" and a "Web of Data" The Semantic Web is Built by and for Collective Intelligence Folktologies Web 3.0 and the concept of "Hyperdata" Did you enjoy this post? Join the discussion! More About: Nova
Connect Discussions Between Blogs, Forums, and more with SIOC
2007-09-18 18:30:00 Semantically-Interlinked Online Communities (SIOC for short) is a framework aimed at connecting online communities and discussions from blogs, forums, content management systems mailing lists, and anything else. In the current Web, communities such as forums and blogs are like islands - they contain valuable information but are not well connected or queryable. SIOC allows you to connect these sites, and enables the extraction of semantic information from unlimited discussion platforms. SIOC consists of three components: The SIOC ontology Metadata producers (available for a number of popular blogging platforms and forums) Storage and browsing/searching systems The core of SIOC is the ontology. It is a vocabulary that contains concepts necessary to express information contained in online community sites. Online community sites then provide information about their structure and contents to the outside world. This information is machine readable and structured using the S... More About: Blogs , Forums , Connect , Disc , Ween
577 Semantic Web Tools now in the AI3 Sweet Tools List
More articles from this author:2007-09-17 22:56:00 Michael Bergman of AI3 released version 10 of his Sweet Tools list of Semantic Web related tools! The list has a staggering 577 entries, 35 of which are newly added with this release! Michael offers the list in three great ways. The first version of the list uses the Exhibit display by MIT's Simile Project to display all the tools in a list that allows you to narrow down your selection by category, programming language, date post, etc. The second version of the list is pretty much just a straight-forward list without all the bells and whistles. This can be better if you just want to scan the list quickly. The coolest and most appreciated way this list comes in is of course... the RDF dump! Keep up the great work Michael!Did you enjoy this post? Join the discussion! More About: List 1, 2, 3 |
 |
|
 |
