Do We Need the Semantic Web?
Yes we do, and we will have one. The article below looks at some of the challenges associated with this quest (for the most part the concerns are valid but not insumountable).
EEK Speaks about the semantic web. A well written article, covering a variety of points. Also talks about >a href="http://www.wiley.com/legacy/compbooks/daconta/sw/">Michael Daconta et al's Semantic Web book, which sounds worthwhile. I‘ll pick up just one point to talk about:
“Who‘s going to be building ontologies? I don‘t think regular folks will, and if I‘m right, then that makes it very difficult to expect a network effect on the order of the World Wide Web.”
Quite. To me, the fine work in ontology engineering will be important in structured knowledge domains (such as biology) and in scenarios where certainty is important (like trust services). OTOH, the most successful examples of network effect are semantically weak (like FOAF) or even empty (hyperlinks). I‘m not sure I‘d go so far as to say that semantic complexity is inversely proportional to network effect. But it approximates my current intuition. Of course I could be wrong ;)
[via Semantic Blogging Demonstrator]