Comments on: Preowned Semantic Web Cars for Bigfoot

By: Tom Morris

Tom Morris — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 06:29:00 +0000

Richard: my comment may be arrogant, but I speak as I find. I’ve read plenty of posts about Semantic Web startups on RWW and they’ve always been rather disappointing: it has become like another buzzword people use to describe a rather vague concept. There are plenty of people in the SemWeb community who would agree with what I’ve said in private but keep their mouth shut in public.There is plenty of good stuff worth reading about the Semantic Web that is produced by people in the SW community, who are building and implementing the technology every day. We’ve got conferences and blogs and so on, and love to bang on about this stuff because it’s what we do every day.DBpedia and the other Linked Open Data publishers are showing how the Semantic Web works. It’s really very simple: it’s data – sort of like the data that you get from APIs – but with links to other data that you can follow. The Semantic Web is just “a webby way to link data”. Everything else is just a side dish.

By: Kent

Kent — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 02:33:00 +0000

Richard, thanks for the comment. I love RWW, but I haven’t seen anyone explain the concept and benefits in clear English. Those Wikipedia articles sure as hell don’t. I’d love it if you’d do a SemWeb for Dummies post.

By: Richard MacManus

Richard MacManus — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 00:06:00 +0000

Tom, that’s an incredibly arrogant comment. I can’t speak for other blogs, but what we at ReadWriteWeb try to do is explain the SemWeb and put it in context so that people understand what is happening, the latest trends and products. Your research work will forever sit in an ivory tower vacuum unless the media (and in particular blogs) cover it. Welcome to the real word, where an RDF faq doesn’t cut it unless you’re a developer – and we cater to a much wider audience, much as we love developers too.Richard MacManusEditor, ReadWriteWeb

By: Tom Morris

Tom Morris — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 14:37:00 +0000

Please ignore Mashable, ReadWriteWeb, Alex Iskold and all those folks: pretty much all of that stuff is a distraction. It helps the business analysis types maintain their hard-ons (and thus keep them funding the research work that my fellow Semantic Web advocates spend their days on).If you want to understand the Semantic Web, read http://www.w3.org/RDF/FAQ – if you’ve still got questions, email me or ask on irc.freenode.net #swig

By: Earl

Earl — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 03:22:00 +0000

Makes me think of street hustlers who hide a small ball under three cups…keep watching the ball as the cups are moved around. In the end you can’t be certain there is a ball. Words without meaning and concepts without value, but yet someone will get rich…keep watching that ball.For my own peace of mind I’ve moved more to photography leaving the slight-of-mind to those with thicker BS shields. It’s nice to see you back online Kent…pull up a chair and stay a while…