Readings - Week 9

Semantic Web 2.0
The Two Cultures: Mashing up Web 2.0 and the Semantic Web

What is the current relationship between Web 2.0 and the Semantic Web?

Web 2.0 has an open development philosophy which has propelled into the forefront of current web-technologies and also set the pace for new ventures or start-ups. Most Web 2.0 applications depend on an implicit, lightweight, flexible, and shared semantic model between Web-linked application elements. They require shared meaning to link their various components and data sources as well as to integrate and organize data in response to user direction. Semantic web could potentially prove to be the underbelly of Web 2.0 applications, in its use of effective semantic tagging, ontology management and URL linking systems. However, the complexity of RDF and OWL are seen as a hindrance for many developers who ultimately choose to take the lightweight and flexible approach of Web 2.0. This in turn generates data-sets that is often poor and sloppy in breadth and proves to be difficult to apply to the pure nature of Semantic techniques. Current Semantic Web has no practical, scalable way for non-experts to create and maintain adequate mapping functions between large amounts of constantly changing ontology and instance information or to manage their periodic versioning and maintenance

How can Semantic Web technologies bring benefit to Web 2.0-style applications?

Although these two technologies are vastly different in their design, purpose and style, it is a common belief that they are actually complimenting rather than mutually-exclusive technologies. Many believe that the strengths of the one technology can be used to enhance or better the weaknesses of the other, making it a lucrative field of research as well as potential commercial revenue on the future web as we know it. The Semantic web can learn from Web 2.0’s focus on community and interactivity, while Web 2.0 can draw from the Semantic Web’s rich technical infrastructure for exchanging information across application boundaries. Here are some benefits that Semantic Web could potentially bring to already existing Web 2.0 applications:

• Reusing data from the Web – With effective tools, semantics could be used to set up Web 2.0 applications to “fetch” data from different sources on the web. This data can either be static, in that it is updated once or dynamic, which will be updated as data from the source is updated.

• Dynamic data sources – Plugins could be configured to be user-specific, hence enhancing the feel of Web 2.0 applications and personalizing them further. Since this is dynamic, the source of the content serves as a feeder for the Web 2.0 application. Technologies used in this include RDF or XML and OWL which enable a greater interoperability, control, correctness and consistency of the data allowing organizations to reach a larger group of users and propagate changes more efficiently.

• Personalization of Web sites – using open web-standards like an HTTP GET command in order to send and receive a certain file, containing preset user location and personal information, enhancing the application immediately, by only presenting data relevant to that user in that particular location.

• Giving Back to the Web – Inputs by users into the application plugins, serve as data that is pumped back into the semantic web system, effectively enhancing the taxonomies and ontologies. Websites can benefit by collecting a plethora of data from users and enhancing the data sent back to the users.