URI all right with that? Google?

Things are not what they seem. It is simple economics.

• The cost of lying is higher to those that abide to their values
• Hiding the truth through fragmentation ( and other political "arts" ) is easy, as long as the information flow is controllable

Therefore, given enough time, the shit goes up. Time to bring it down. The Web is a weapon.

The Web is making the information flow less and less controllable. We have already seen a huge impact ( the fact that you are flooded by news about human rights violations, dictatorships, etc. means that information is leaking ).

Linked Data is going to take this a step further. We can expect as a result of this process that we will quickly move towards full accountability. This is beautiful. You are what you do, and you get what you deserve.

Of course, this is a fluctuating process and there will be bumps ( privacy comes to mind ). But, speaking for the generality of the world ( which is not sitting on a leather couch drinking a beer ), the bumps are a joke compared to the benefits it will provide.

I know this might seem like something distant for many ( specially if you ARE sitting on a leather couch drinking a beer, like me ).  It might all sound logical but... what does this have to do with my life?

That's a valid question. And this is the point where its up to you to come up with an answer. You need to decide whether you really want to try and understand the meaning of what you're doing. The formula is simple: the more info you gather on the depth of the problems our unfortunate brothers are having, the more sensible you'll become.

If that sounds too vague ( it is a vague advice ), then there is also another way to work this out. Bring the issue to your living room. ( because you are being fooled by someone at some level ). Here's a trick that has worked wonderfully for me:

First, find a stereotype and learn about it. How would ultimate corruption look like?

This is a subtle process but you can expect to

• See just how real corruption is and how twisted we can become
• Learn the subtleties of the system
  

I have to thank mr Mugabe for providing the perfect example.

Take your time and read about Mugabe's regime. How he got there, his lavish lifestyle, how he's destroyed the country and everything in between. Notice how information is starting to hurt him through exposure ( too little, to late, but it's a start ).

In particular, take a close look at his staff. See how they operate. See how they lie and literally laugh about it ( and they keep doing it. It's like they enjoy some sort of magical impunity ). Their conduct is so grossly twisted that it may even seem funny for us. But there you have it: a stereotype.

Of course we all see thru this charade and find it bordering impossibility. How can they pull this off? And yet, they do it. And millions suffer.

Now what makes you think this is just their problem?

Is there a chance you might be experiencing something similar from a conceptual standpoint?

Second step is to try and take the stereotype to your reality. Unsurprisingly, this is also quite easy now thanks to the Web. Just surf through the videos from the trials of the latest financial crisis to anything related to the Fed and in particular the bailout. Do this and see if you recognize any patterns. Just follow your gut feeling.

I won't point you in any particular direction here, because you'll think I'm cherry picking particular videos and/or you might have your own political POV. But here's one tip: it's not about who's right, it's the whole game that's really rotten. When watching a trial, focus on the "whole thing". The guy sitting on the strand is just playing his part.

Once you train the feeling, the evidence around you will be overwhelming. A little too much at times.
It's the egg or the chicken problem. You don't value evidence if you don't know what you're looking for. So, you need to take the first step.

I am happy to work on an area related to the web, even if my contribution is small. The more I understand, the more gratifying my work becomes. This is going to be a great year for all of us ;)

Full attribution is the ultimate utopia, and it will happen in our lifetime!

For the first time, being a good person will also be a
convenient thing to do ;)

OK I have said this before, but I need to say it again before they get eaten by Ellison.

I really really really love the Sun mark. But just that, those three letters: S.U.N. Not their logo and much less their image. I think their marketing dpt missed the chance to build the greatest brand in history.
It's amazing how much raw potential those three letters had.

The competitive angle
"Sunday. Not even Google owns a day of the Week."

The reliability angle
"Robust. Reliable. Predictable... see you tomorrow."

The lazy angle
"We run your business so you can grab some."

The tech angle
"Our last cold boot was 4.57 billion years ago"

The sexy angle
"Total Customer Satisfaction. Robust Servers. Open Platforms. Amazing Tans. "

The scandal angle
"Oops. Sorry for global warming"

LOL ;)

When I was a kid, I used to be obsessed with "big" stuff. Like the Dinosaurs or the pyramids. Or epic stories about lost worlds, impossible odysseys and Space. The day to day world seemed so dull in contrast to these stories, that the decision to escape to my imagination was quite easy. Oh crap, why did I have the bad luck to be born in this era? Why do I have to go to school and listen to fantastic stories about "history"?
I want to be part of it!

This kept going for a while, the feeling that this era was so... unromantic. Nothing big or magical was going on. No new worlds left for me to discover, no magical gifts left under this tree. All I could do is hold a globe and spin it until I got dizzy, while coming to the sad realization that every bit of land is accounted for.

Then, some 20 years ago, I had a rather obvious epiphany: if you went back to, say, the European discovery of America, things weren't romantic or magical at all. People were just living their lives, probably wondering about the same stuff I was. However, big things were still going on. I now know that from this side of history.

Why didn't they see them?

Well, because they just couldn't. They were IN the story. Even Shi Huangdi , one of the most impressive and powerful obsessive compulsive men to live on earth was probably more focused on his food being too cold than reading about "his legacy". Duh!

Oh crap! So there is no solution to this!... Nothing left other than accepting the fact that I am but a tiny dot in history, and big things happen over time. After all, it's a fact of life that things can only move so fast.

And so I obviously accepted this, just like every child does ( either rationally or not ). And I learned to enjoy the small things in life and fight for the "moderate" dose of adventure I am entitled to (As a tiny dot in history you are still entitled to a tiny dose of personal adventure, mind you).

I guess we're all on the same page here, right? We all realized or somehow incorporated, at some point in our early lives, the idea that it would take a miracle that changed the basic laws of time and distance to speed up this thing and bring the Dinosaurs and the epic stories back, and so we lowered our expectations. Our mind is the ultimate adaptation machine after all, so we have all implicitly assumed that it would be impossible to change the basic fabric of our reality: time, distance, and other fundamental aspects that limit what can happen and what cannot during our lifetime.

This dormant mechanism what Hollywood has learned to exploit oh so well.

Now, the truth is that there IS something big going on today. The Pyramids and all of the Chinese empire's constructions are rather small when compared to what we're building today. Seriously, we even have machines floating out in space that are part of this system. Out in SPACE. And cables under the ocean. And dictatorships are falling. And a new culture is arising. And the geopolitical balance is being re... ok. You get the point, right?
If this had happened ages ago, would you be reading about it? Oh yes! This ranks a bit higher than people with megalomaniac mental disorders building "empires" and, well, people with other mental disorders painting pictures ;).

But... yeah, we're suffering from the same problem our ancestors have suffered: we don't see what's going on because we're in the story. So. In a sense we're still screwed, aren't we?

Well, there are some tricks to getting over this limitation, but they require you to take a voluntary step and gain some perspective ( = read all your life until you see the plot ). The more info you gather, the most impressive this whole story becomes.

But here's the twist: The construction we're building now is also changing the rules of time and space.

And this is why you are so damn lucky and why you have nothing to envy from Napoleon. In fact, you're about to experience a lot more change than anyone ever has in their lifetime. And this won't happen across the street. It's coming at you like a storm.

So, please drop those stupid assumptions about time and space and become a believer again. The dinosaurs are coming to life and we are connecting our minds across the distance (please say the last part out loud and see how crazy it sounds).

If this still doesn't tickle you, please note that we're about to pass the knee of the curve and the acceleration will be such that you will be simply blown away, like it or not. Being a dot in time won't be a problem anymore.

On the next article to this "series" I will tell you one of the reasons about why this thing is going to speed up: The Web is going to get an upgrade for the first time in over 10 years.
Not just any upgrade, but one that will turn the web as a whole into a much more powerful tool in our evolution.

Be careful what you wish for... you might just get it ;)

I stopped blogging because I can share my thoughts on Twitter as they come, in no particular order, and I get immediate reward. Blogging seems unnecessarily hard... unless. Unless I let go the structure.

So, from now on I'm going to officially use this as an extended Twitter.

Starting... Now

Don't blame me, I'm just a sheep ;)

Last time I say TimBL in person he looked a bit tired. Well, he has the right to be. The man has been fighting relentlessly for over two decades.
That was sometime in October last year, before Linked Data hit the knee of the curve.

It sure is exciting to watch his upbeat talk at Ted about Linked Data. The man knows the ship has already sailed, he projects the message. It might have to leave the bay yet, but things are auspicious and this is going to be a terrific journey.



Congratulations!
You pulled it off once again.

Transparency, here we go ;)

Links:

• http://linkeddata.org/
  
• Introducing the Planetary Datasphere (Part 1) - Orri Erling
  
• Linked Data is the Water in the SemWeb Pool
  

This is in reply to the following discussion .
I put it here because there is no guarantee of it emerging in web3beat (so, I am not only being called names, I also risk being moderated now ;).

It is slightly edited, but still addressed to one person in particular. However, I hope it will save others some time, in particular those feeling lost in the Web3 VS SemWeb VS SemTech VS Linked Data naming problem. Especially business folks who are starting to run into this communicational mess.

-----------------------------

The reason it is worth spending time here is because this is not a simple topic and is probably more important than the tech aspects involved. The "definitional confusion" is in fact what has kept the SW from coming to life.

From a social POV a Web of Data would be a gift. Just one URI gives you access to all the data relative to a certain event, person or project. Companies would benefit too of course, and new industries will appear, but just think of those "below the waterlevel" cases where people live and die out of a paper or a fact receiving proper attention.
Integration projects are expensive. But, what if you get rid of integration costs?
What if you outsource analysis? (part of the ecosystem that is already starting to align).
( add other ideas here... )

It is quite fascinating to see how such amount of value has remained stuck by protocolar aspects. RDF has been around since (1997?), Ontologies even before that. Text analysis is not new either. Agents are also old in the sense that not much advance has been made lately. They all hit walls at some point and have been evolving in a continuous manner (as opposed to radical).

Moving these techs yet one meter more will not trigger a paradigm shift. So that's not the front where we need to focus now. Which one is it?
There has been something else missing here.

With a calm mind, please take a look at what the Linked Data community has built in a year and the rate of growth it is attaining.
The only reason this "explosion" is happening now is because a group of people were bright enough to realize that they needed to split the vision. I agree this is just data and technology today, but expect to see an ecosystem of products and services very soon.
Why am I so certain about the latter? because there is value here. It simply provides better, faster solutions to many problems that exist today.

( And the answer to the existence of a semweb app is: Hardly, since we're just witnessing the birth of the web. I expect some of them will start hooking *into* the SemWeb during 2009. Just like you may choose to connect to the web today )

( I explained the difference between semweb and semtech on my blog ).

Now, on why this debate reached such heights. I spent time here, and I guess others did as well, because what might be "just an assertion" to you is in fact potentially problematic.
This web property is called Web3beat. Dan organizes events. You (Greg) most certainly have access to business users, decision makers and probably even people from Forrester and such.

To align with you in simple terms.
Linked Data is a simplification of the overall vision and a "marketing" trick if you wish to make people focus on what has to be done *now* w/o the overhead of having them buy/understand the intricacies of the next steps. Ontology alignment, structured data publishing, text mining and, eventually, privacy debates will all be (inevitable) consequences of the first step.

And have no sense withuout it.

The pool needs to be filled with water. We can then deploy the nice tricks.

This assertion has technical proof, and I can understand that it is not so obvious from a non-tech savvy level.
Even within the community there is confusion, since most people from inside see the project as one whole block.
Remember that this has taken a long, long time.

Again. Take a look at the LOD cloud and fantasize about what services will grow obsolete (an indicator of disruptive tech) and try to attain how much value is building up in there. Why didn't this happen before?

That's the point. That's what we've been consistently arguing.
Linked Data is the Water in the Pool ;)

We need this seed to showcase the USPs of the Web of Data, drive demand and make the industry advance.

Regards,
A

I know things are not so obvious on this front, so I can spare most people from not getting it. But when someone calls himself an expert consultant and starts discrediting Linked Data, all I can say is: geez... is it that bad?

It is all going to become pretty obvious rather soon. But for now, let me give you some hints.

Understanding what's really going on with this Web3.0 thing is not about being smarter or belonging to a given elite. The truth about the architectural future of the web is simple, but the story has been stretched through time and we don't see the direction of the plot, just like we don't perceive the sun's movement across the sky.

But the sun is moving.

( yeah, I know... but let's just say it is ;)

In the case of the Web's architecture, the trajectory follows a long term roadmap and, at this point, we are about to take one major step forward: moving from a Document Web to a Data Web.

The specifics of how this happens are actually quite simple. Just Google for "Linked Data".

( TIP: That's why RDF uses URIs everywhere. It is not to make our lifes harder... but so "data" can be accessed and linked to the Web. Pretty much like we access Web Pages today )

So, is it just data? No black magic? Records/Entities with URIs as Identifiers?
But, what's with this "Semantic" Thingy?
I thought this was much more complex: Ontologies, NLP, Rules, etc...

Ahh. Good question!

The short version of the answer is:

That's what happens when you put a lot of smart people together and things take longer than expected. They need to put their large brains to work on something. Luckily, they worked on the same project and took the second, third and probably fourth steps.
They could do this because, even if the first step ( Data Web ) was not ready, they could still use "mini Data Webs" ( any application is a mini Data Web. or Data Intranet if you wish ).
The fact that we have gained experience on the next steps is good because now that we are actually taking the first ones we have a much better idea on how to proceed and there are tons of tools anxiously waiting to get their teeth into a bigger pray.

But, if this is just happening, then why are there "Semantic Web" companies out there?
Oh, well. I can't be authoritative here as this is not my trademark and they sure have good intentions. But this is more or less what happened:

The second, third and fourth steps are generally about applying old (but powerful) ideas to large sets of data: reasoning, integration, extraction and analysis, etc. These techs are not conceptually new but, given their tight relation with the Semantic Web project, they have come to be known in some circles as Semantic Web technologies. In fact, most of them have been influenced by SW standards and the overall vision ( we are talking about a whole decade here! ).

But this is just "Semantic Tech", as there is not Web component yet (except for a few companies that are appearing as of 2008/2009).

So, I say it once again: Semantic Tech is just a part of the Semantic Web. Steps two, three, etc. The other part is, of course, the "Web" over which the techs will be applied.

Companies that use these"Semantic Techs" might or might not be aligned with the first step.

In fact, there are many companies that also use "Semantic Techs" but don't even know about this new collective name. Remember that these techs are not new. In fact, you can trace many of them back to ancient times!

And by ancient I mean ancient in internet time ( 20/30 years ) and in human time as well ( Greeks et Al. ).

Now, this might seem easy to understand yet there is a lot of controversy surrounding the definitions. Just think about the WWW for a while ( the Document Web as we know it ).
If you have a bunch of HTML files stored in your PC and they have no links going outwards and are not published on the Web ( not accessible via a URL, with or w/o security )... are these files ON the web?

Or if you put them on a Zip file and carry them around in a USB stick?

They would be just documents. Disconnected documents. The fact that they are using HTML is just an anecdote, as they are not really taking benefit of the core value proposition behind HTML: Links.

Stay tuned ;)

I am breaking silence for a while after running into some discussions. This blog is kept simple on purpose. I am saving my energy for stuff that matters more to me ( I don't consider self promotion any priority and my social interactions happen through other media. Email mostly, now Twitter ).

Anyway, if you arrive asking yourself: "what does this guy have to do with SW?". The short answer is: I have been working with "Semantic" tech for more than 6 years. Initially due to curiosity, then because I fell in love with reasoners and KRFs as more flexible substrates for business applications. And lately because it is... finally... happening ;)

The Semantic Web is here. Or... is it the Linked Data web?

Well, here are some brief definitional clarifications.


The First Step came after the Second One:

We have always been capable of using NLP, metadata extraction heuristics or relational mappings to generate structured data from large a corpus of text, streams, etc.
We've also long had KRFs and reasoners to describe and derive new knowledge. 

The Unique and "Novel" Selling Point of the SW is the "Web" aspect of its architecture, because the other parts are not really any breakthrough ( in fact, they are better solved somewhere else. We are playing catch up here with specialized solutions ).

This is fundamentally why some argue that no real Semantic "Web" existed before 2008/9. Because there was no "Web", only silos. People using RDF as a KRF for old practices ( not saying they aren't useful. I was one of them ). 

Linked Data and URIs as pointers is what finally makes the Semantic Web a "Web". As I said, I don't think anyone argues the importance of the other elements in the long run. 
The nice twist here is that, rather soon, the large amount of Linked Data ( which many are calling, "layer 1" ) being generated will fuel a breakthrough in the other areas. 

For example: NLP engines will now have access to wordnet + cyc + dbpedia + a myriad vertical dbs. All interconnected. No one says Linked Data *is* the SW. In fact that's why it has a different name ;)

For us in the trenches, it is about making the "Web" aspect happen.