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Kingsley Uyi Idehen
Lexington, United States
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Crunchbase & Semantic Web Interview (Remix - Update 1)
After reading Bengee's interview with CrunchBase , I
decided to knock up a quick interview remix as part of my usual
attempt to add to the developing discourse.
CrunchBase : When we released the CrunchBase API , you were one of the first
developers to step up and quickly released a CrunchBase Sponger Cartridge . Can you
explain what a CrunchBase Sponger Cartridge is?
Me : A Sponger Cartridge is a data access driver for
Web
Resources that plugs into our Virtuoso
Universal Server (DBMS and Linked Data Web Server combo amongst other things). It
uses the internal structure of a resource and/or a web service
associated with a resource, to materialize an RDF based Linked Data graph that essentially describes
the resource via its properties (Attributes &
Relationships).
CrunchBase: And what inspired you to create
it?
Me : Bengee built a new space with your data,
and we've built a space on the fly from your data which still
resides in your domain. Either solution extols the virtues of
Linked Data i.e. the ability to explore
relationships across data items with high degrees of serendipity
(also colloquially known as: following-your-nose pattern in
Semantic Web circles).
Bengee posted a notice to the Linking Open Data Community 's public
mailing list announcing his effort .
Bearing in mind the fact that we've been using middleware to mesh the realms of Web 2.0 and the
Linked Data Web for a while, it was a no-brainer to knock
something up based on the conceptual similarities between Wikicompany and CrunchBase. In a sense, a
quadrant of orthogonality is what immediately came to mind re.
Wikicompany, CrunchBase, Bengee's RDFization efforts, and
ours.
Bengee created an RDF based Linked Data warehouse based on the data
exposed by your API, which is exposed via the Semantic
CrunchBase data space . In our case we've taken the
"RDFization on the fly" approach which produces a transient
Linked Data View of the CrunchBase data
exposed by your APIs. Our approach is in line with our world view:
all resources on the Web are data sources, and the Linked Data Web is about incorporating HTTP into the
naming scheme of these data sources so that the conventional
URL based hyperlinking mechanism can be used
to access a structured description of a resource, which is then
transmitted using a range negotiable representation formats. In
addition, based on the fact that we house and publish a lot of
Linked Data on the Web (e.g. DBpedia , PingTheSemanticWeb , and others), we've also
automatically meshed Crunchbase data with related data in DBpedia and Wikicompany data.
CrunchBase: Do you know of any apps that are
using CrunchBase Cartridge to enhance their
functionality?
Me : Yes, the OpenLink Data
Explorer which provides CrunchBase site visitors with the
option to explore the Linked Data in the CrunchBase data space . It also allows them to "Mesh"
(rather than "Mash") CrunchBase data with other Linked Data sources on the Web without
writing a single line of code.
CrunchBase: You have been immersed in the
Semantic Web movement for a while now. How
did you first get interested in the Semantic Web ?
Me : We saw the Semantic Web as a vehicle for standardizing
conceptual views of heterogeneous data sources via context lenses (URIs). In 1998 as part of our
strategy to expand our business beyond the development and
deployment of ODBC , JDBC , and OLE-DB data providers, we decided
to build a Virtual Database Engine (see: Virtuoso History ), and in doing so we
sought a standards based mechanism for the conceptual output of the
data virtualization effort. As of the time of
the seminal unveiling of the Semantic Web in 1998
we were clear about two things, in relation to the effects of the
Web and Internet data management infrastructure
inflections: 1) Existing DBMS technology had reached it limits 2)
Web Servers would ultimately hit their functional limits. These
fundamental realities compelled us to develop Virtuoso
with an eye to leveraging the Semantic Web as a vehicle from completing its
technical roadmap.
CrunchBase: Can you put into layman’s terms
exactly what RDF and SPARQL are and why they are important? Do
they only matter for developers or will they extend past developers
at some point and be used by website visitors as
well?
Me: RDF (Resource Description Framework) is a Graph
based Data Model that facilitates resource description using the
Subject, Predicate, and Object principle .
Associated with the core data model, as part of the overall
framework, are a number of markup languages for expressing your
descriptions (just as you express presentation markup semantics in
HTML or document structure semantics in XML) that include: RDFa
(simple extension of HTML markup for embedding descriptions of
things in a page), N3 (a human friendly markup for describing
resources), RDF/XML (a machine friendly markup for describing
resources).
SPARQL is the query language associated with
the RDF Data Model, just as SQL is a
query language associated with the Relational Database Model. Thus,
when you have RDF based structured and linked data on the Web, you can query against
Web using SPARQL just as you would against an Oracle /SQL
Server/DB2 /Informix /Ingres /MySQL /etc.. DBMS using SQL .
That's it in a nutshell.
CrunchBase: On your website you wrote that “RDF
and SPARQL as productivity boosters in everyday
web development”. Can you elaborate on why you believe that to be
true?
Me: I think the ability to discern a formal description
of anything via its discrete properties is of immense value re.
productivity, especially when the capability in question results in
a graph of Linked Data that isn't confined to a
specific host operating system, database engine, application or
service, programming language, or development framework. RDF
Linked Data
is about infrastructure for the true materialization of the
"Information at Your Fingertips" vision of
yore. Even though it's taken the emergence of RDF Linked Data to
make the aforementioned vision tractable, the comprehension of the
vision's intrinsic value have been clear for a very long time. Most
organizations and/or individuals are quite familiar with the adage:
Knowledge is Power, well there isn't any
knowledge without accessible Information , and there isn't any accessible
Information without accessible Data. The Web
has always be grounded in accessibility to data (albeit via
compound container documents called Web Pages).
Bottom line, RDF based Linked Data is about Open
Data access by reference using URIs (HTTP
based Entity IDs / Data Object IDs / Data Source
Names), and as I said earlier, the intrinsic value is pretty
obvious bearing in mind the costs associated with integrating
disparate and heterogeneous data sources -- across intranets,
extranets, and the Internet .
CrunchBase: In his definition of Web 3.0, Nova
Spivack proposes that the Semantic Web , or Semantic Web technologies, will be force behind much
of the innovation that will occur during Web 3.0. Do you agree with
Nova Spivack? What role, if any, do you feel the Semantic Web will play in Web
3.0?
Me: I agree with Nova. But I see Web 3.0 as a phase
within the Semantic Web innovation continuum. Web 3.0
exists because Web 2.0 exists. Both of these Web versions express
usage and technology focus patterns. Web 2.0 is about the use of
Open Source technologies to fashion Web Services that are
ultimately used to drive proprietary Software as Service (SaaS)
style solutions. Web 3.0 is about the use of "Smart Data Access" to
fashion a new generation of Linked Data aware Web Services and
solutions that exploit the federated nature of the Web to maximum
effect; proprietary branding will simply be conveyed via quality of
data (cleanliness, context fidelity, and comprehension of
privacy) exposed by URIs.
Here are some examples of the CrunchBase Linked Data Space , as projected via our CruncBase Sponger
Cartridge:
Amazon.com
Microsoft
Google
Apple
About this entry:
Author: Kingsley Uyi Idehen
Published: 08/27/2008 18:16 GMT-0500
Modified: 08/27/2008 20:35 GMT-0500
Tags: webservices , web2.0 , web20 , rdf , xml , oledb , db2 , informix , ingres , jdbc , sql , mysql , odbc , oracle , semanticweb , web30 , dataweb , sparql , history , openlink , virtuoso , virtual_database , DataSpace
Categories: Virtual Database ,
Data Access ,
SQL , Semantic Web , Programming , Web Services (Web 2.0)
Comment Status: 0
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