Comments on: The Semantic Web Is Dead http://www.kyleandkelly.com/2006/08/23/the-semantic-web-is-dead/ Memories in progress Wed, 31 Mar 2010 06:41:50 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 By: jeremy http://www.kyleandkelly.com/2006/08/23/the-semantic-web-is-dead/comment-page-1/#comment-343 jeremy Fri, 25 Aug 2006 17:33:00 +0000 http://www.kyleandkelly.com/2006/08/23/the-semantic-web-is-dead/#comment-343 to Kyle, My point was essentially that it is being used by the people who have a use for it. Not that it is starting to gain in popularity but that there have always been niche markets for that information if you're target audience desires one. Whether the browser is consuming it or not is irrelevant to the whole discussion. There are extensions, and utilities that scrape pages for those people who have a need for them. If you intended audience is going to be using them then by all means you should use semantic markup. If you audience doesn't and probably won't ever care then don't bother. CSS didn't make semantic markup obsolete it made it more useful. to Kyle, My point was essentially that it is being used by the people who have a use for it. Not that it is starting to gain in popularity but that there have always been niche markets for that information if you’re target audience desires one. Whether the browser is consuming it or not is irrelevant to the whole discussion. There are extensions, and utilities that scrape pages for those people who have a need for them. If you intended audience is going to be using them then by all means you should use semantic markup. If you audience doesn’t and probably won’t ever care then don’t bother. CSS didn’t make semantic markup obsolete it made it more useful.

]]> By: Dave Brondsema http://www.kyleandkelly.com/2006/08/23/the-semantic-web-is-dead/comment-page-1/#comment-342 Dave Brondsema Fri, 25 Aug 2006 13:34:51 +0000 http://www.kyleandkelly.com/2006/08/23/the-semantic-web-is-dead/#comment-342 Real world application: embedded RDF in media files ala XMP. Adobe already supports this, as does the International Press & Telecommunications Council. Windows Vista will support it. projects.apache.org generates their pages from DOAP files, with some apache extensions My Konfidi project uses several RDF schemas to describe trust relationships between entities. RDF may not be great for the browser-web, but it's great for machine interchange of information. What SQL databases are to internal apps, RDF should be for external apps. Also check out http://ebiquity.umbc.edu/blogger/100-most-common-rdf-namespaces/ for a pulse on what RDF schemas are popular. Real world application: embedded RDF in media files ala XMP. Adobe already supports this, as does the International Press & Telecommunications Council. Windows Vista will support it.

projects.apache.org generates their pages from DOAP files, with some apache extensions

My Konfidi project uses several RDF schemas to describe trust relationships between entities.

RDF may not be great for the browser-web, but it’s great for machine interchange of information. What SQL databases are to internal apps, RDF should be for external apps.

Also check out http://ebiquity.umbc.edu/blogger/100-most-common-rdf-namespaces/ for a pulse on what RDF schemas are popular.

]]> By: kyle http://www.kyleandkelly.com/2006/08/23/the-semantic-web-is-dead/comment-page-1/#comment-341 kyle Fri, 25 Aug 2006 12:06:19 +0000 http://www.kyleandkelly.com/2006/08/23/the-semantic-web-is-dead/#comment-341 To Jeremy: to play Devil's Advocate... why should I care about semantic markup if CSS can make my tags look however I want? Why not just use divs for everything? You write "is is only there to make more information available to those who want to use it," but who actually uses it? If no one uses it, why should anyone care if it\'s semantic? I think that's the point Christian was after. Christian's been doing the CSS/XHTML thing from day one, so I'm pretty sure he's well-acquainted with the basics theories behind the whole deal. My reply was that 1) people ARE beginning to make use of it and 2) there's no telling what uses they'll want to make of it in the future. To Jeremy: to play Devil’s Advocate… why should I care about semantic markup if CSS can make my tags look however I want? Why not just use divs for everything? You write “is is only there to make more information available to those who want to use it,” but who actually uses it? If no one uses it, why should anyone care if it\’s semantic?

I think that’s the point Christian was after. Christian’s been doing the CSS/XHTML thing from day one, so I’m pretty sure he’s well-acquainted with the basics theories behind the whole deal.

My reply was that 1) people ARE beginning to make use of it and 2) there’s no telling what uses they’ll want to make of it in the future.

]]> By: kyle http://www.kyleandkelly.com/2006/08/23/the-semantic-web-is-dead/comment-page-1/#comment-339 kyle Fri, 25 Aug 2006 01:38:00 +0000 http://www.kyleandkelly.com/2006/08/23/the-semantic-web-is-dead/#comment-339 To Dave: The aside was so I could distinguish between Semantic Web (big "S") and "semantic web" (little "s"), so nothing got ignored. I suppose "semantic html" would've been a better term, but meh... As to RDF; it's always left me feeling a little too "ivory tower". Outside of RSS, where's the real world application? To Dave: The aside was so I could distinguish between Semantic Web (big “S”) and “semantic web” (little “s”), so nothing got ignored. I suppose “semantic html” would’ve been a better term, but meh…

As to RDF; it’s always left me feeling a little too “ivory tower”. Outside of RSS, where’s the real world application?

]]> By: Marzhill Musings » Semantic Markup?? http://www.kyleandkelly.com/2006/08/23/the-semantic-web-is-dead/comment-page-1/#comment-337 Marzhill Musings » Semantic Markup?? Thu, 24 Aug 2006 19:54:23 +0000 http://www.kyleandkelly.com/2006/08/23/the-semantic-web-is-dead/#comment-337 [...] As long as I’ve been doing stuff on the web I’ve heard the constant refrain about semantic markup. Here and then here are just two of the latest. So I thought I’d add my own thoughts to the mix. What often gets lost in these discussions is the difference between semantic markup and the display of your markup. The fellow over at Six27 makes the point that using CSS obviates any need for semantic markup as it pertains to the browser’s display. He seems to think this is what makes semantic markup meaningless. However that is exactly the point of semantic markup. You can structure the data on the page any way you wish and have the presentation however you want it. This actually makes semantic markup easier. Semantic markup is not there to help you display the data. It is only there to make more information available to those who want to use it. [...] [...] As long as I’ve been doing stuff on the web I’ve heard the constant refrain about semantic markup. Here and then here are just two of the latest. So I thought I’d add my own thoughts to the mix. What often gets lost in these discussions is the difference between semantic markup and the display of your markup. The fellow over at Six27 makes the point that using CSS obviates any need for semantic markup as it pertains to the browser’s display. He seems to think this is what makes semantic markup meaningless. However that is exactly the point of semantic markup. You can structure the data on the page any way you wish and have the presentation however you want it. This actually makes semantic markup easier. Semantic markup is not there to help you display the data. It is only there to make more information available to those who want to use it. [...]

]]> By: jeremy http://www.kyleandkelly.com/2006/08/23/the-semantic-web-is-dead/comment-page-1/#comment-336 jeremy Thu, 24 Aug 2006 19:36:24 +0000 http://www.kyleandkelly.com/2006/08/23/the-semantic-web-is-dead/#comment-336 The key here is the (x) in (x)HTML. Being extensible it allows you through the use of namespaces to embed semantic data in your site. This really only becomes useful to people who understand the namespace your using. But this is not a hindrance since industry standards usually end up allowing the people you want to understand it do so and the rest you don't really care about. HTML is not symantic, truthfully, but (x)HTML allows you to be to your specific audience. And that's what really matters anyway. The key here is the (x) in (x)HTML. Being extensible it allows you through the use of namespaces to embed semantic data in your site. This really only becomes useful to people who understand the namespace your using. But this is not a hindrance since industry standards usually end up allowing the people you want to understand it do so and the rest you don’t really care about. HTML is not symantic, truthfully, but (x)HTML allows you to be to your specific audience. And that’s what really matters anyway.

]]> By: Dave Brondsema http://www.kyleandkelly.com/2006/08/23/the-semantic-web-is-dead/comment-page-1/#comment-334 Dave Brondsema Thu, 24 Aug 2006 14:03:18 +0000 http://www.kyleandkelly.com/2006/08/23/the-semantic-web-is-dead/#comment-334 I'm glad to see in your "quick aside" that you realize the Semantic Web is much much more than what you and Christian are discussing. But in a discussion of semantics, why then do you ignore that fact and keep calling it the "semantic web"?? It's "semantic (x)html" you're talking about. The semantic web http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/ says "It is based on the Resource Description Framework (RDF)." A more powerful system than microformats is RDFa http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml-rdfa-primer/ allowing one to embed RDF semantics into HTML using a microformats-style. There are other specs for embedding RDF into HTML. And you can suck those various forms of RDF data out of the HTML using GRDDL http://www.w3.org/2004/01/rdxh/spec I’m glad to see in your “quick aside” that you realize the Semantic Web is much much more than what you and Christian are discussing. But in a discussion of semantics, why then do you ignore that fact and keep calling it the “semantic web”?? It’s “semantic (x)html” you’re talking about.

The semantic web http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/ says “It is based on the Resource Description Framework (RDF).”

A more powerful system than microformats is RDFa http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml-rdfa-primer/ allowing one to embed RDF semantics into HTML using a microformats-style. There are other specs for embedding RDF into HTML. And you can suck those various forms of RDF data out of the HTML using GRDDL http://www.w3.org/2004/01/rdxh/spec

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