What is URIBurner?
A service from OpenLink Software , available at: http://uriburner.com , that enables anyone to
generate structured descriptions -on the fly- for resources that
are already published to HTTP based networks. These descriptions
exist as hypermedia resource representations where links are used
to identify:
the entity (data object or datum) being
described,
each of its attributes, and
each of its attributes values (optionally).
The hypermedia resource representation outlined above is what is
commonly known as an Entity -Attribute-Value (EAV) Graph. The use
of generic HTTP scheme based Identifiers is what distinguishes this
type of hypermedia resource from others.
Why is it Important?
The virtues (dual pronged serendipitous discovery) of publishing
HTTP based Linked Data across public (World Wide Web ) or private (Intranets and/or
Extranets) is rapidly becoming clearer to everyone. That said, the
nuance laced nature of Linked Data publishing presents significant
challenges to most. Thus, for Linked Data to really blossom the
process of publishing needs to be simplified i.e., "just click and
go" (for human interaction) or REST-ful orchestration of HTTP CRUD
(Create, Read, Update, Delete) operations between Client
Applications and Linked Data Servers.
How Do I Use It?
In similar vane to the role played by FeedBurner with regards to
Atom and RSS feed generation, during the early stages of the
Blogosphere, it enables anyone to publish Linked Data bearing
hypermedia resources on an HTTP network. Thus, its usage covers two
profiles: Content Publisher and Content Consumer.
Content Publisher
The steps that follow cover all you need to do:
place a
tag within your HTTP based hypermedia
resource (e.g. within section for HTML )
use a URL via the @href attribute value to
identify the location of the structured description of your
resource, in this case it takes the form:
http://linkeddata.uriburner.com/about/id/{scheme-or-protocol}/{your-hostname-or-authority}/{your-local-resource}
for human visibility you may consider adding associating a
button (as you do with Atom and RSS) with the URL above.
That's it! The discoverability (SDQ) of your content has just
multiplied significantly, its structured description is now part of
the Linked Data Cloud with a reference back to your site (which is
now a bona fide HTTP based Linked Data Space ).
Examples
HTML+RDFa based representation of a structured
resource description:
<link rel="describedby" title="Resource Description
(HTML)"type="text/html"
href="http://linkeddata.uriburner.com/about/id/http/example.org/xyz.html"/>
JSON based representation of a structured resource
description:
<link rel="describedby" title="Resource Description
(JSON)" type="application/json"
href="http://linkeddata.uriburner.com/about/id/http/example.org/xyz.html"/>
N3 based representation of a structured resource
description:
<link rel="describedby" title="Resource Description
(N3)" type="text/n3"
href="http://linkeddata.uriburner.com/about/id/http/example.org/xyz.html"/>
RDF/XML based representations of a structured resource
description :
<link rel="describedby" title="Resource Description
(RDF/XML)" type="application/rdf+xml"
href="http://linkeddata.uriburner.com/about/id/http/example.org/xyz.html"/>
Content Consumer
As an end-user, obtaining a structured description of any
resource published to an HTTP network boils down to the following
steps:
go to: http://uriburner.com
drag the Page Metadata Bookmarklet link to your Browser's
toolbar
whenever you encounter a resource of interest (e.g. an HTML
page) simply click on the Bookmarklet
you will be presented with an HTML representation of a
structured resource description (i.e., identifier of the entity
being described, its attributes, and its attribute values will be
clearly presented).
Examples
If you are a developer, you can simply perform an HTTP operation
request (from your development environment of choice) using any of
the URL patterns presented below:
HTML:
curl -I -H "Accept: text/html"
http://linkeddata.uriburner.com/about/id/{scheme}/{authority}/{local-path}
JSON:
curl -I -H "Accept: application/json"
http://linkeddata.uriburner.com/about/id/{scheme}/{authority}/{local-path}
curl
http://linkeddata.uriburner.com/about/data/json/{scheme}/{authority}/{local-path}
Notation 3 (N3):
curl -I -H "Accept: text/n3"
http://linkeddata.uriburner.com/about/id/{scheme}/{authority}/{local-path}
curl
http://linkeddata.uriburner.com/about/data/n3/{scheme}/{authority}/{local-path}
curl -I -H "Accept: text/turtle"
http://linkeddata.uriburner.com/about/id/{scheme}/{authority}/{local-path}
curl
http://linkeddata.uriburner.com/about/data/ttl/{scheme}/{authority}/{local-path}
RDF/XML:
curl -I -H "Accept: application/rdf+xml"
http://linkeddata.uriburner.com/about/id/{scheme}/{authority}/{local-path}
curl
http://linkeddata.uriburner.com/about/data/xml/{scheme}/{authority}/{local-path}
Conclusion
URIBurner is a "deceptively simple" solution for cost-effective
exploitation of HTTP based Linked Data meshes. It doesn't require
any programming or customization en route to immediately realizing
its virtues.
If you like what URIBurner offers, but prefer to leverage its
capabilities within your domain -- such that resource description
URLs reside in your domain, all you have to do is perform the
following steps:
download a copy of Virtuoso (for local
desktop, workgroup, or data center installation) or
instantiate Virtuoso via the Amazon EC2 Cloud
enable the Sponger Middleware component via the RDF Mapper VAD
package (which includes cartridges for over 30 different resources
types )
When you install your own URIBurner instances, you also have the
ability to perform customizations that increase resource
description fidelity in line with your specific needs. All you need
to do is develop a custom extractor cartridge and/or meta
cartridge.
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