Semantic Web

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The Semantic Web is an evolving development of the World Wide Web in which the meaning (semantics) of information and services on the web is defined, making it possible for the web "bots" and applications to "understand" and satisfy the requests of people and machines to use the web content. It derives from World Wide Web Consortium director Sir Tim Berners-Lee's vision of the Web as a universal medium for data, information, and knowledge exchange.

There are those who say the full potential of the Semantic Web will never be realized.

At its core the semantic web comprises a set of design principles and enabling technologies. Some of these include Resource Description Framework (RDF), a variety of data exchange formats (e.g. RDF/XML, N3, Turtle, N-Triples), and notations such as RDF Schema (RDFS) and the Web Ontology Language (OWL), all of which are intended to provide a formal description of concepts, terms and relationships within a given knowledge domain.

An ontology is a formal representation of a set of concepts within a domain and the relationships between those concepts. It is used to reason about the properties of that domain, and may be used to define the domain. Ontologies are used as a form of knowledge representation about the world or some part of it.

As an ontology defines the concepts and relationships within a domain, it provides a standardized vocabulary for that domain and the relationships between those concepts. The standardization creates a specification which allows a computer program to "understand" the vocabulary. Ontologies range from simple taxonomies and classifications, to database schemas, and on to fully axiomatized theories.

In recent years, ontologies have been adopted in many business and scientific communities as a way to share, reuse and process domain knowledge. Ontologies are now central to many applications such as scientific knowledge portals, information management and integration systems, electronic commerce, and semantic web services.

Available today are an ever growing number of applications which attempt to realize this vision either through a top down or a bottom up approach to web semantics.

To me, a "semantic application", has a core element that attempts to determine the meaning of text and other data, and then create connections or relationships for users. Data portability and "connectibility" are keys to the new semantic applications.

What is evolving is not going to be just Google with better results pages, but rather a search engine that answers your question and then gives you references for more information. (check out http://www.wolframalpha.com/ and http://www.hakia.com/)

Also See Network Empire's Content Curation Course - Cash Micro-Content Curation, Syndication and Publishing at the Speed of Thought

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