05.27.05
Semantic Web: A Critique
I just ran across this gem, which somewhat mercilessly shreds the idea of the Semantic Web as hopelessly at odds with the complexities of the world it is trying to represent. It concludes with this bit:
Much of the proposed value of the Semantic Web is coming, but it is not coming because of the Semantic Web. The amount of meta-data we generate is increasing dramatically, and it is being exposed for consumption by machines as well as, or instead of, people. But it is being designed a bit at a time, out of self-interest and without regard for global ontology. It is also being adopted piecemeal, and it will bring with it with all the incompatibilities and complexities that implies. There are significant disadvantages to this process relative to the shining vision of the Semantic Web, but the big advantage of this bottom-up design and adoption is that it is actually working now.
Are MicroFormats the kind of “piecemeal” effort described above? I think so.
Danny said,
May 28, 2005 at 2:55 am
Shirky misinterpreted a lot about the SW and SW technologies - in this quote for example, most SW development is bottom-up.
See: http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-archive/2003Nov/0010.html
Todd said,
May 28, 2005 at 10:17 am
Danny,
Thanks for the link. Dan’s rebuttal is really well articulated. Did Shirky ever respond? There didn’t seem to be a response on that list.
Like Dan, I also thought it strange that Shirky focused so much on the inference-making potential of the SW — as someone new to the field, I wasn’t even aware that that was on the radar. As is probably obvious, I come at this from the perspective not of pie-in-the-sky AI but of getting information better organized and structured so it can be better navigated and consumed.
Still, I found this interesting:
The obvious question is: easier than what?
As a technologist, I’m surprised to find myself writing this, but SW has a pretty serious marketing problem, independent of its technical value. Compared to some alternatives (like MFs), RDF might be more powerful, but it’s definitely harder on the authoring side and might provide only marginal benefit on the consumer side.
Thus I see RDF as poorly positioned right now: technologially, it’s not clearly superior and it’s got an undeniable marketing deficit.
Regardless, there are clearly a lot of smart people involved with SW and RDF, and that’s why I view the work you’ve been doing with GRDDL as important: it creates a potential bridge between the various technology-centered communities. Did you realize that you are a technological ambassador? If implementors believe that they will be able to move back and forth between multiple (potentially competing) formats, there will be more implementation, and that’s really the end goal.