11 Things To Know About Semantic Web
1. You don’t need to apologize for calling it Web 3.0. Of course the Web does not upgrade in one go like a company switching to Vista. But there is a definite phase transition from current technologies. My personal Web 3.0 definition is “the combination of Web 2.0 mass collaboration with structured databases”.
2. Semantic Web will start the long, slow decline of relational database technology. Web 3.0 enables the transition from “structure upfront” to “structure on the fly”. The world is clearly too complex to structure upfront, despite the tremendous skills brought by data modelers. Structure on the fly is done by people adding structure as they use the service and by engines that automatically create structure from unstructured content. Structure on the fly is very, very hard and RDBMS is very, very entrenched so this will be a long and slow transition; but the decline is inevitable. Innovation has slowed in the RDBMS world - with open source at one end and Oracle at the other, there is little reason to innovate - just when Semantic Web innovation is accelerating. RDBMS was good for enterprise scale performance and reliability but for Internet scale it falls short; just look at what companies like Amazon use.
3. If you have a firm grasp of the theoretical underpinnings of the semantic web, things like RDF, tuples, Sparql and OWL that make my brain hurt, you will be able to charge a fat premium in consulting fees for a while, as not many people really understand this stuff. But make hay while the sun shines, as some entrepreneur will surely figure out how to abstract this stuff and make it accessible for the masses.
4. The success stories will be different from Web 2.0. Just like Web 2.0 success stories were different from Web 1.0 successes. Web 2.0 successes were mostly about a single feature (photos, bookmarks, video, phone, blogging, etc) where there was extremely rapid adoption by consumers. Semantic Web is inherently about integration and those plays tend to be different, longer and much bigger potential.
5. Don’t look for a killer app. That implies a client/consumer win. This is much more likely to be a server/platform/enterprise win. Even if the initial experimentation is done in the consumer domain; Freebase for example looks like a mass Beta test for some enterprise technology that Metaweb wants to release later.
6. As this is a platform play, look for powerful APIs and ways to motivate entrepreneurs to build apps on top, with a clear “show me the money” proposition. Those apps maybe consumer or enterprise focussed.
7. Semantic Web could slow the Google steamroller. This could be like the PC for IBM or the Web for Microsoft. The steamroller’s momentum carries it forward for a very long time and it can build all kinds of wrapper systems around it, but something new always does come along. Google mastered how to give some structure to countless unstructured HTML pages. Semantic Web will gradually make that less critical as the underlying content will be more structured. These big generational changes - mainframe to PC to Web - seem to be happening faster, so it seems about time for another big generational change to start happening.
8. But don’t look for Yet Another Search Engine (YASE) to be the David to Google’s Goliath. Just like PC was not another mainframe and Web was not another PC. Don’t ask me precisely what it will look like; if I did know I would have to kill you if I told you. I just know what it won’t look like
9. Vertical Search is the pragmatist’s Semantic Web. Vertical Search businesses use whatever techniques they need - basic search engines, scrapers, APIs, human editors - to create some meaningful/useful structure in a single domain. Over time these cobbled together pragmatic solutions will be replaced by a semantic web platform, probably by an API that enables human editors to leverage their valuable domain expertise.
10. Tagging is the quietly disruptive technology. Everybody tags. It is the most basic human urge to mark what we find. We do it with Folders in Windows. We do it online with Bookmarks. Specialist tag Microformats such as Hcard and Hcalendar add more structure and we are only at the very start of this wave.
11. Semantic Web will leverage the “community” to add structure and this will use some techniques from first generation Social Networking. But it is very unlikely that Semantic Web will emerge from the walled gardens of current social networking sites. The winners will know how to motivate community to provide structure and will provide the tools that make the structuring so easy that nobody knows they are doing anything so boring as structuring. That is the big lesson from Web 2.0 that will be applied in the Semantic Web.
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This is interesting. I wrote almost exactly the same article last week, regarding the death of the relational database. Indeed the arguments are strikingly similar.
A big part of my piece is about how the semantic web is too academic and not designed for regular web developers, even though the subject area is quite relevant and would be incredibly valuable to most. My message seems to have been picked up by at least some on the w3 semantic web team as it was quoted on their mailing list as part of an argument for a new direction they need to take.
Posted by: Hank Williams | February 16, 2008 5:51 AM
The RDF/DAML/OWL Semantic Web (aka Web 1.5 ALPHA) has been the next big thing for 7 years now. Just wait till next year.
Posted by: Marlon Pierce | February 16, 2008 7:00 AM
This is a very interesting post. Semantic is the way forward.
Posted by: Steven Finch | February 16, 2008 7:28 AM
I hope you are right. Is the community side that I know how to do!
Thanks for the readable and thought provoking post.
Posted by: Jo | February 16, 2008 10:26 AM
Kingsley, help, they are making our poor semanticshamntic web complicated again.
There should be a license required to write about the two big topics in semantic technologies:
1) The technology behind it - generally recognized as the greatest blunder the W3C has ever made; OWL and RDFS.
2) The effects and resulting applications that will emerge from these technologies, and the competing technologies that leap over the OWL/RDFS abortion. (Computational Linguistics, Machine learning).
If the author is a computer scientist actually working in the field, please accept my apologies, I'm nit here to tear down, but really, all of the tech that has been so promised is great for diddling, but we haven'st seen productivity delivered.
And, I have been installing semantic browsers, add-ons, etc., since 2004.
Personally, I believe that the delivery of functions of the semantic whatever, will have to be delivered as fully integrated tools and services.
The man on the street, including some savvy small business folks, are just getting up on web apps as a service, giving up the local server in favor of services, and just getting wrapped around blogs and such as a marketing channel.
Enough on Semantic Punditry - unless you would like to order my report on the semantic web for an introductory price of $895.00, you will need the semantic browser extension to read it, and will then be able to surf contextual links that are related to your email thread and porn chats.
Posted by: Alan Wilensky | February 16, 2008 11:05 AM
at Xoost we are doing our best to go in most of the directions suggested in this article. I hope we can contribute with our efforts to the development of the semantic web
Posted by: XOOST.com | February 16, 2008 11:05 AM
Hi Bernard - it's a very valuable summary.
I can see the future as a background tool which is able to gather information from our 'work sessions' connected with marked tags, descriptions and preferences of browsed paged and interesting and valuable knowledge. Thus, I think that only background tool used during searching and browsing the web will be useful for analysing and storing data properly, without making people to do sth boring and difficult.
Anyway, I get a question to you: could you show me the aspect of understanding the context of searching? Because I haven't found any answer to a question 'how the machines will understand the natural language?'
Posted by: Mateusz | February 16, 2008 11:27 AM
Until the learning curve improves, Semantic Web will continue to have a slow adoption rate. Once we get people to understand it, then we are sure that it will take off and fly.
Posted by: rom.myopenid.com
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February 16, 2008 1:29 PM
I'm not a big believer in semantic-web principles, but even if you are partially right, #5 is likely to contradict #11. The biggest technology market is now the consumer. B2B is in 2nd place forever. Each technology cycle has a killer app or two, i.e. from now on a killer consumer app or two.
What that leaves is one of:
A. Web2 killer consumer apps do a great job of aggressively moving to semantic technologies, which would contradict historical norms;
B. New killer consumer apps rise using semantic goodies to take over; or
C. Neither of the above -- the third big Internet cycle will be based on something else, and semanticshamanism will be a bit player.
[ C ] !
Posted by: Scott Rafer | February 16, 2008 1:40 PM
Alan,
I hear you :-) On the data web do refer to me as : http://myopenlink.net/dataspace/person/kidehen#this (My Linked Data Web ID). Of course this is best viewed by an RDF aware user agent (*for now*).
I've just penned a post explaining how Linked Data (the Semantic Web Killer technology) enables me to unravel OpenLink's product portfolio :-)
Others,
Yes, the Semantic Web is about Data Integration, but we don't use the term "Semantic Web" anymore due to the confusion that inevitably arises. Instead, we use the term: Linked Data or Linked Data Web.
We are now entering a realm where we can point to records in databases (or data spaces) across instance, machine, and network boundaries courtesy of HTTP.
As always here are some links to help:
1. DBpedia (a Document Web URL)
2. Linked Data (ditto)
3. Semantic Web (a Data Web Object ID or URI)
4. Linked Data (ditto)
5. My Web 2.0 tag cloud exposed as a Linked Data URI that exposes Frequencies, Subject Association, and meaning of the Tag Web 2.0 as used in my blog posts.
If you really want to experience the power of Linked Data (i.e. expose the massive data graph around this particular post), simple place the permalink of this post in an RDF Browser such e.g. the OpenLink RDF Browser or the Zitgist Data Viewer.
Posted by: Kingsley Idehen | February 16, 2008 1:49 PM
12. The remaining thing to know about a Semantic Web’s Index is the “mirror image” of meaningful (conversational) semantic search queries i.e.- unlimited numbers of persistent complex NLP declared user queries - that create “graphs of needs that are indexed autonomous intelligent agents” - interrogating all newly arriving information streams. Indexed autonomous intelligent agents will provide each user with uniquely personalized (competitive) information awareness. That will trigger Web 4.0 and VIRAL adoption.
Posted by: Michael Belanger | February 16, 2008 2:18 PM
Very good post. Infact #5 and #6 will lead to an important outcome of web 3.0 i.e an Integrated Platform. An integrated platform also gives way to web 4.0 i.e ubiquitous web . What lead to Web 2.0 successes "a single feature solutions" become liability into web 3.0 arena.
Posted by: Ramana Kovi | February 16, 2008 2:26 PM
Will somebody please buy Kingsley's company (openlinksw.com), so I can cash in on my MOU that he buy or lease me a Subaru Station Wagon...and not the cheap one, either K, the nice one, The VDC wagon with stability control.
Oracle has been buying all these crap companies, and there are numerous other questionable deals between Dell and his little brother, but how often do you get a prestigious (Smart Jewish, good looking, single) analyst that is not connected with the analyst whore farms [Forrester, Gartner), telling you plain:
OpenLink software has been innovating non-stop for 15+ years on (not only semantic) technology that spans the entire stack; better integrated content serving and database architectures, better unified data model and no-brains required disappearing middleware, Web 2.0 suite of turnkey and community services, shall I go on?
The man is a force, his company is the best example of how the RT128 Boston area tech belt stomps the Valley, and he keeps a sense of humor.
Smart money is going to buy a piece of this leading Semantic tools and infrastructure company.
Subaru VDC wagon, Kingsley...
Posted by: Alan Wilensky | February 16, 2008 2:47 PM
My Web 2.0 Tag Cloud as Linked Data.
Note, this URI is easier to discern than the one in my earlier comment post.
Posted by: Kingsley Idehen
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February 16, 2008 5:20 PM
I'm curious what readers (and the author) think about this project that is an alternative to the semantic web I typically hear covered here, but carries relational databases to another level:
http://www.maya.com/infocommons/magic.html
From their website:
While the necessity of universal data identity and data extensibility is already recognized by a variety of Semantic Web / Web Services / XML technologies, such systems generally rely on URL references to identify information, saying not what the information is, but simply where it is stored. This means that data objects can disappear when a particular server goes down in the Web Services world. In contrast, data objects in the Information Commons are not dependent upon physical location, enabling the same information to be replicated and accessed from several locations. And, once you've accessed data in the Commons, it becomes part of your local repository, making it available to you even when you are not online. This feature is ideal for organizations that work in remote, under-served or disaster-stricken areas with little or no Internet access or for users who are frequently traveling.
Posted by: etradaniel.myopenid.com
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February 16, 2008 6:56 PM
I have my doubts on the OWL/RDF driven semantic web...it has been a long time coming, with almost nothing significant to show.
My bets are more on a better(more effective) search in specific domains and similar implementations which extracts semantics from existing data rather than something scaffolded by OWL/RDF etc.
Posted by: nishant | February 16, 2008 10:28 PM
I agree with Alan Wilensky, OWL, RDF are total abortions!!!
But no doubt, natural selection applied to the semantic web will select the strongest. Eventually, the good things will survive.
It is interesting to ask why did we not start with semantics in IT first. Why only now is it comming to the forefront (apart from academic circles) Maybe this is the only way to solve the problem of complexity in IT. I think that damn RDBMS thing has caused a lot of damage.
However, semantic technologies will only be adopted bradly if they solve real problems for clients. For example they must be able to run big businesses. Current semantic structures proposed by w3c do not allow for this.
For interest sake, we have been working on semantics over last 10 years. This included research into forms of expression, complexity theory, infrastructure to support it etc. Very soon we are going to go live on the web with our semantic offerings (ThoughtExpress.Com). This offering is unrelated to current semantic web trends. We have been running few large enterprises (millions of clients) entirely on our semantic technology - in on site model.
In about six month time we are going to add to our offering what we call semantic human interface. This will enable anybody to express their knowledge (enterprise/personal - no metaphysics :-)) and others to locate it (no traditional search) based on what they need and conduct e-commerce/processes.
Pawel Lubczonok
Posted by: pawel lubczonok | February 16, 2008 11:44 PM
I loved the insight that, it will kill Google... I hope it really does ;)
Posted by: kuldeep | February 17, 2008 12:47 AM
I do love the irony of a site called ReadWriteWeb explaining the Semantic Web. Because I'm still waiting for Consumer facing applications that actually read semantic web data. Right now, and for as long as I can remember, all that RDF and Semantic data has been "Write Only" apart from a series of academic prototypes that never actually worked. So maybe for this post only, the site should be called "WriteWeb". There's relatively huge quantities of FOAF and Microformatted HTML out there now. So where's the killer apps that actually use it?
Now I've upset everyone in the field, it's good to see Brad at Google trying to do something with the index they (may) have of all that FOAF and microformats. Maybe something will come of that.
Posted by: Julian Bond
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February 17, 2008 1:04 AM
Users in the blogosphere are already starting to provide some elements of machine parsable semantic structuring by tagging their posts and linking. At WikiPedia a basis for making their content more machine parsable is provided by disambiguation of WikiWords.
A progression along these lines, that might provide much more grist for the mill, is the amicog idea of assembling a forum from categorised and rated posts, sorted according to user-sourced trust metrics.
Posted by: Douglas Reay | February 17, 2008 3:04 AM
This is great stuff, but I think the RDBMS thing is a bit of a red herring. If search technologies continue to require a central index, does it really matter if that index is hosted within an RDBMS? As long as the spiders gather increasingly structured data and the querying of the index keeps up with the semantic structuring of the information, I would have thought that the likes of Oracle and MySQL could continue to host the index, as long as the speed and accuracy of querying remains high.
Posted by: Matt Perdeaux | February 17, 2008 3:31 AM
People are reacting as if it's ONLY about semweb. It isn't. It's semweb combined with intelligent agents, knowledge management, all sorts of other areas (modelbases, graph farming, ontology mapping, ...). Semweb is not intended as a stand-alone solution to all of humankind's ills.
This being said, semweb is about a new generation of applications. I've written about this for the AlwaysOn Network (as one of Tony's "network bloggers"/columnists), do so for SemanticReport.com, and will be doing so for the Sand Hill Group (switching from my previous China-focused pieces). See, for example, my recent piece on Enterprise 3.0 and semweb, http://doiop.com/Enterprise3.0 or http://alwayson.goingon.com/permalink/post/23747 .
At the forthcoming Semantic Technology Conference (which is applications-focused) I'll be moderating a panel featuring the CEOs from Radar Networks (Twine), AdaptiveBlue (BlueOrganizer; Alex is affiliated with R/WW), Powerset, Talis with maybe a surprise or two. Each company represents a different way of bringing semweb to the masses. What's important is to create useful apps, mask the complexity from the masses, make it incredibly simple to use. From what I've seen with Twine and Powerset, they've already done this; so have the AdaptiveBlue BlueOrganizer and the ClearForest Gnosis FF add ons (to varying degrees of success to date).
I was quoted in a New York Times piece two weeks ago where I defined a potential semweb killer app. And the killer app: Matchmaking, be it for business partners, life partners, to find employers or employees. See http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/03/business/03novel.html ... and watch out for "Interactions 3.0", http://www.interactions30.com and one-click networking and discovery, http://www.oneclicknetworking.com .
Posted by: David Scott Lewis (Zytech Solar, a Going Green 100 Winner) | February 17, 2008 3:31 AM
Excellent summary. I think you've hit the nail on the head. I am glad there are people like you who can write simply and eloquently to demystify notoriously complex Semantic Web concepts. I've worked with Semantic Web technologies for a while now and I can agree that your points pretty much hit the nail on the head.
Posted by: Cody Burleson | February 17, 2008 4:00 AM
I'm not really going to go on about the "Semantic Web" because I personally don't believe the "Semantic Web" is going to get popular for a couple more years.
The current underlying technology of Web 3.0 / Semantic Web is too complicated for the average or intermediate programmer to understand. I myself am not really up-to-par in relation to semantic web.
It's yet another buzzwording craze that has yet to start.
- Dwayne Charrington.
http://www.dwaynecharrington.com
Posted by: Dwayne Charrington | February 17, 2008 4:56 AM
Malarkey. The Semantic Web is hiding a dirty little secret: it doesn't scale. One can blather on about graph theory and the data web all day long, but stuffing everything into one big-ass table doesn't work well at the end of the day.
Posted by: Raj | February 17, 2008 11:06 AM
These discussions link into what I am most interested in - what the dominant online discussion regarding "Web3.0" is marked by and what the repercussions are for society.
Posted by: chantelle oliver | February 17, 2008 12:51 PM
Raj,
Scalability is a deficient attribute of the Linked Data Web anymore than it is the Document Web. The current Document Web and Linked Data Web (nee. Semantic Web) are interconnected and mutually inclusive.
Mutual inclusivity is the defining characteristic of the next frontier, the trouble with this concept is that it is ironically unnatural to most :-)
The Linked Data Web is about distilling structured data (entities) from the existing corpus of data on the Document Web, while enabling the injection of addition Entity richness to the Web as we go forward.
Try to imagine a Web where the defining input and processing devices are the Human Eyes and the Human Brain; especially in the context of the exponential growth of User Generated Content on the Web.
Without a Linked Data Web we are defenseless against the imminent challenge of: Information Overload.
Today, a Google Search ultimately tells you how many documents you will never get to read. But, how can you be sure that all of those documents are irrelevant simply because processing time, and the limitations of a DNA based data input and processing system works against you. Think, Think, and Think about this matter, as it simply reality!
Posted by: Kingsley Idehen | February 17, 2008 1:53 PM
This was linked to over at Hacker news. I'm so fond of my comment I made there, I'm crossposting it here. Semantic mark-up if you will:
Without having read the article (yet), my theory is that the web will become "semantic" in the sense "semaniacs" hope for ONLY when users can generate structured content (other than just photos, articles, comments, forum posts etc) EASILY ... that is: differently from when HTML started out, site owners cannot get such a ball rolling by painstakingly fleshing out RDF mark-up manually. Rather, those web sites will be "semantic" that provide wiki-like editing for data sets.
As an example, imagine a web-based database of restaurants: - Let everyone provide tags for different categories (taste ie Indian/Italian/Regional, style ie luxury/fast food joint/middle-of-the-road, features ie garden/bar/smoking area) - Let everyone update base facts such as address or name changes - Let everyone add photos, media, reviews, comments - Most importantly: let everyone rate/confirm/deny everyone elses contributions - Reward by credits/trust/rankings but where commerce is involved, also by discounts/"miles"/whatever.
Make it easy for websites to do that, or create successful websites that do that so others follow suit should this be what people really want, and you have a semantic web in no time.
If the semantic web is what people want, this will be the only feasible way to create one. If it's not what they want, we will find out soon enough.
--
Okay now I've read the article. The point I was making is their bullet point 11. The only one that I thought mattered in this article. Enterprise/platform/integration win rather than consumer win? Nope, consumers decide, they always do...
Posted by: Phil | February 17, 2008 3:02 PM
I will leave it to you all to sort out OWLs vs. the competition -- my only plea is that we not call it Web 3.0 yet. Heaven help us all if everyone jumps on that bandwagon before it even really gets moving.
Posted by: Merredith | February 17, 2008 8:23 PM
"#2. Semantic Web will start the long, slow decline of relational database technology. "
--> Well, most of the better RDF-databases are based on Relational Databases. The same way you build OLAP technology based on relational databases, you can build RDF databases. It's just a new layer using a proven base technology. On the contrary, an interesting application of semantic web technology in business is in traditional Business Intelligence / Data Warehousing.
"5. Don’t look for a killer app."
--> Why? I could imagine a hundred killer applications. One I am personally focussing at is personal document-less knowledge management (ArtificialMemory.net). But I guess semantic technology has the potential to change the way we communicate (natural language versus structured information), think (using documents versus hierarchical object memory systems), and act (using traditional UI versus semantic interfaces). Expressing oneself in tuples/reifications could become a cultural tequnique.
Posted by: Lars Ludwig | February 17, 2008 9:46 PM
UNNECESSARY!
That is what you need to know about this stuff!
Symantec is yesterdays technology slowly dieing today!
Stay away from anything not created or directly controled by MS!
Posted by: steveballmer | February 18, 2008 11:40 AM
The semantic web is still pretty nascent. It's got lingo and an output that's hard to follow. BUT...it does have the promise of re-writing the rules for tracking and finding data. I like your take on the demise of the relational database.
As for Google, I'd expect them to figure out the semantic web and incorporate it into their offerings. Remember, their mission is "to organize the immense amount of information available on the web". This fits that mission perfectly.
Finally, as a layman, I find "semantic web" still a bit hard to grok. Here's my attempt to make semantic web a little more accessible to the common person: http://tinyurl.com/3ya2vc
Posted by: bhc3 | February 18, 2008 2:28 PM
oops! sorry wrong Symantec you are talking about semantic. My bad.
Posted by: steveballmer | February 19, 2008 1:36 PM
Remember that Semantic Web is not Google
Posted by: Yakov | February 20, 2008 10:50 AM
I'd offer the following comment regarding intelligence and scalability of knowledge-centric computing vs information-centric approache. Let's call it the space-time trade off. And for those who don't want to read the post, here is the punch line:
Smart data trumps procedural algorithms!
In software, we can trade processing cycles (time) for storage (space). For example, imagine an algorithm where every possible input combination, processing sequence, and output variation had been pre- computed and that the results of all these possible states had been stored. Next time there would be no need to (re)execute the program because all possible inputs and results have already been computed and declared. You simply look up the result by specifying the variables that constrain the space of possible outcomes. Nothing could be faster.
Historically, the cost of computation favored executing algorithms over and over, rather than providing the semantic bandwidth and memory to access and store all possible permutations in a declarative knowledge mesh. That was then. Today, computing economics have reversed. Massive memory and parallel processing is cheap and getting cheaper. Massive declarative knowledge-based computing is now economical.
But, there’s an even more compelling reason why the shift is happening now — new capabiities. Declarative systems allow applications that can learn, evolve, and use knowledge in ways the system designer could not foresee. How is this possible? Declarative languages specify “what” is to be done. Declarative representations are like a glass box with knowledge visible in a format that can be accessed, manipulated, decomposed, analyzed, and added to by independent reasoners. Procedural languages, on the other hand, encode “how” to achieve a particular result. Procedural representations are like a black box with knowledge fixed and locked inside. Determined by algorithms, procedural systems do the same thing every time and cannot learn from experience.
Posted by: Mills Davis | February 21, 2008 8:54 AM
I wish this was called 12 Things To Know... #1 should have been "This is the definition of 'Semantic Web'"
Posted by: tieTYT | February 22, 2008 1:25 PM
"9. Vertical Search is the pragmatist’s Semantic Web. Vertical Search businesses use whatever techniques they need - basic search engines, scrapers, APIs, human editors - to create some meaningful/useful structure in a single domain. Over time these cobbled together pragmatic solutions will be replaced by a semantic web platform, probably by an API that enables human editors to leverage their valuable domain expertise."
A fantastic point that’s often overlooked. Google looks for scalable solutions and today’s vertical search engines are very difficult to scale (across verticals). The semantic web will allow Google to build scalable apps in all kinds of verticals.
Posted by: Clay | February 22, 2008 6:42 PM
The most important thing about the semantic web that has been left out is that it is more than a convenient way to index things that allows for search. It allows for _reasoning_ about knowledge. Once data is properly marked up, 3 decades of research into automatic and semi-automatic reasoning can be brought to bear on it. This means that we can discover completely new knowledge, some of which will probably blow our minds.
Posted by: Bob | February 25, 2008 12:27 AM
"Once data is properly marked up, 3 decades of research into automatic and semi-automatic reasoning can be brought to bear on it. This means that we can discover completely new knowledge, some of which will probably blow our minds."
Actually, no. All it will get us is the ability to make automatic deductions. But deductions by their nature don't tell us anything new. They are just boring provably correct statements derived from other statements.
All Ps are Qs. Fred is a P.
Hooray!!! My computer can figure out that Fred is a Q.
Dude, that's not progress.
Semantic technology has lots to offer us, but deep down inside, it's not how people work or think, and that's the problem. Most useful thought is inductive, not deductive. It's a pity computers are so bad at induction.
Posted by: Jon | February 29, 2008 2:48 AM
Should you direct efforts to render the concepts of the semantic web more clearly accessible and comprehensible to the general medical community, not not say the general public, of web users you would greatly expedite growth of knowledge and raise the level of participation to a higher "cruising altitude."
Posted by: ephraim mandel | March 3, 2008 1:42 PM