Understanding The Semantic Web
The Semantic Web, according to wikipedia.org, is an “extension” of the web which can be accessed and understood by computer software programs, not only humans using browser programs. Wikipedia also indicates that the idea behind the Semantic Web is that people will be able to instruct computer software to carry out a task for them online, and it will complete the task automatically, rather than requiring the user to carry out the work manually through a browser.
The WWW Consortium (w3.org) website states that the Semantic Web is also about interconnecting and relating different databases, and emphasizes the use of RDF (Resource Description Framework) and XML (Extensible Markup Language). It is considered to be a major potential “evolution” in the future of the world wide web which would fundamentally change how information is located and viewed. In an interview with consortiuminfo.org, WWW inventor Tim Berners-Lee compared the change to a Semantic Web with the change from online services (like America Online and CompuServe) to the internet during the mid 1990s, pointing out that many people were skeptical of that change as well.
In theory, if the entire web were converted to the Semantic Web format, it would be possible to enter just about any answerable question and be automatically provided with information which is specifically defined as facts pertaining to the question’s subject, rather than a list of webpages containing words in the question. It would also be possible for the computer software to automatically relate data from one source with another, instead of requiring the user to manually access the data and compare it. This does, however, raise questions regarding how the creators of such data would be compensated, or how the software would handle questions with disputed answers. While simple questions like the date of a holiday or the temperature in a particular city usually have only one answer, users would still have to consider a variety of sources when finding answers to questions on frequently disputed subjects like history, health, and economics.
This concept has made progress in some areas, such as the FOAF (”Friend of a Friend”) computer-readable social network. Overall, the Semantic Web is an interesting and potentially beneficial concept which is rather complex and difficult to fully implement. However, many technologies which are taken for granted today were considered very difficult to implement at one time as well.
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