Ivan Herman is the Semantic Web Activity Lead at the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). For more information, see his W3C bio page.

This article summarizes an interview with Ivan Herman, Semantic Web Activity Lead at the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). I met Ivan through a presentation he made at the Semantic Technology Conference this spring and was impressed by his ability to explain the semantic web in terms that a layman could understand. This article includes excerpts from his presentation and covers the following topics:

• Why do we need the Semantic Web?
• How does it work?
• How are organizations using it?
• How to convert data into Semantic Web format?
• Where do we stand now?
• What you should do to prepare.

Why do we need the Semantic Web?
To illustrate the value of the technology, Ivan looks at what's involved in planning a trip from Amsterdam to Budapest. The process probably goes like this:

1. Find a flight and a hotel by visiting an airline or hotel web site or by searching a site that aggregates multiple travel options (e.g. expedia.com);

2. Learn something about Budapest and view some photos by using photo search engines (e.g. Flickr) or a social travel site (realtravel.com).

The process involves viewing a large number of sites — all different in style, purpose, and possibly language — and mentally integrating all the information they provide. All those pages are tips of information icebergs. The real data is hidden somewhere in databases, XML files, or Excel spreadsheets. You're only allowed to see what the web site designers decide to make available. Most of the time, you want to access the original data and combine it to suit yourself.

Even when you own the data (for example, information about yourself and your contacts), you still have to type it in again and again for each social network site (e.g. LinkedIn, Facebook, etc.).

The Semantic Web is designed to expose hidden data by:

• linking data independently of the presentation;
• using data (i.e. displaying, searching, or mining it);
• interpreting data using software agents, scripts, etc.

Or, to put it another way, we would like to extend information currently available on the Internet to a Web of data that will allow computer applications to exploit the data directly.

What about mashups?
Mashups illustrate the potential of the Semantic Web, but they work by gathering data in very ad hoc ways. Each source exposes its data via an API using a different logic and different data structure. Because there is no standard way of expressing logic or data relationships, mashup sites are forced to reinvent the wheel many times. The Semantic Web replicates mashup functionality more efficiently using a standardized Web of data.

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Created on 8/5/2009 l Updated on August 13, 2009