On Thu, Oct 13, 2011 at 5:18 AM, Karen Coyle <lists_at_kcoyle.net> wrote:
> So RDF and schema.org have different goals and purposes.
I think that is only the starting point, and if you're looking at
directions in which the Semantic Web is going, look to schema.org (or
better, try to get involved there).
Speaking about the death of the Semantic Web is a bit silly by the
author, of course; in order to kill something it must first have been
alive, but the Semantic Web has been a silly experiment for years and
years, not to be confused with Semantic technologies which are faring
extremely well. (If anyone here has been involved in ORM use or
development, you're part of that, even RDBMS at a stretch) As lots of
people have said since its beginning, the syntax and model were just
wrong. Sure, you *can* express anything you want through a myriad of
triplets, but that doesn't mean that is the best way about it, and
yes, as Jim and others have noted, schema.org and microformats are
means of expressing the same thing.
However.
There's a major difference, and it's worth talking about, and that is
that field that I feel librarians should be champions of (they're only
champions of it in their own tiny little niches) ; Ontology (the
formal, IT related concept of 'ontology'). The magic of the Semantic
Web (and most semantic technologies) isn't in describing the data as
such, it is in describing and working with the relational level (all
those lovely predicates / associations / types / etc.). The ability to
*share* and merge and work with an ontology as a separate entity to
the data is extremely important in understanding the importance of why
we bother to keep churning these technologies.
It also needs to be said (not that I haven't whined about this ad
naseum before :) that the concept of persistent identification in the
mix of subject description is vitally important, not only to describe
the basic stuff, but for the future of where software applications are
heading. There's a magic border between data, meta data and shareable
ontologies that is rooted in persistent identification management that
is lost on most people, especially in the sense of predicting the
death of the semantic web ...
Man, I'm despairing over the severe lack of epistemology when people
talk about these things. You guys at least have the LCSH ... *rimshot*
Kind regards,
Alex
--
Project Wrangler, SOA, Information Alchemist, UX, RESTafarian, Topic Maps
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Received on Wed Oct 12 2011 - 17:52:57 EDT