09 December 2008

Sit tight, the semantic web approaches

The Semantic Web not only isn't new in town, it's also much more than an emerging trend. In fact, Semantics is set to play a big role in the development of the Web 3.0 by integrating real world entities into the internet

Most initiatives to build the Semantic Web are inspired by Sir Tim Berners-Lee, one of the fathers of the internet and director of the 3W Consortium, who envisioned the web as the universal medium for data, information and knowledge.

Currently, the Web is mainly based on HTML documents which lack the ability to formally describe concepts, terms or relationships on any knowledge domain. Microformats are a powerful, although unofficial, approach to extend HTML syntax to include meaningful, machine-readable markup about objects. Search and Affiliates could be largely benefited from the popularisation and wide adoption of microformats.

The rise of the Semantic Web motivates more and more initiatives to provide added value to internet users and the list of the Top 10 Semantic Web Products of 2008 compiled by the blog ReadWriteWeb is a great example of this push for quality online services.

Among the semantic applications that made it into the list, there are a number of very interesting search add-ons such as SearchMonkey which pulls semantic data from feeds or web pages to enhance Yahoo! Search results, and new approaches to Search Engines like Hakia or PowerSet, both focusing on natural language processing methods.

Although the HTML 5 draft expands the semantics syntax of the language, specifications like RDF and OWL are going to become increasingly popular in the next year and will take the world wide web to the next level - so fasten your safety belt.