To reach the Semantic Web, must we already be there?
Published 2 years ago by James Simmons
I was reading a blog entry by Matt at PeerPressure that brings up a point worth sharing. One of the biggest problems supporters of the Semantic Web initially faced was, as Matt stated, the classic tech catch 22. His explanation is:
"no one wants to create content that can't be consumed, and no one wants to invest in tools to consume content that doesn't yet exist."
However, the problem of requiring an initial big bang to get the ball rolling has been relieved somewhat by the rise of standard markup patterns that don't force us to "repeat ourselves" such as Microformats and embedded RDF. These small building blocks are like baby steps towards the Semantic Web. The Semantic Web is gaining traction and more developers are placing interest in what it has to offer.
About the author
It's my goal to help bring about the Semantic Web. I also like to explore related topics like natural language processing, information retrieval, and web evolution. I'm the primary author of Semantic Focus and I'm currently working on several Semantic Web projects.
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Posted by Joe la Poutre on March 8, 2007 at 7:57am
Interesting... I just finished an article (for Dutch magazine usabilityweb.nl) on Microformats where I came to the same conclusion. Roughly summarized as: now we got a more or less critical mass of microformatted content, together with GRDDL this can serve as a decent start for a Semantic Web.
Posted by James Simmons on March 8, 2007 at 9:50am
Absolutely, I agree. We have been given the initial building blocks of the Semantic Web and in time we will see gradual changes take place. By gradual changes I mean more prevalent use of embedded metadata patterns (eRDF, Microformats) and we will begin to see that information be put to interesting use.