Is there a Social Semantic Web?

From September 26 – 27 a Conference on the Social Semantic Web (CSSW) will be held in Leipzig. The conference will end with a panel discussion on the question “Is there a Social Semantic Web?”.

My opinion is: Yes, there is only a social semantic web. The internet as a whole is of course a social system (what else? drop some bombs and the internet becomes senseless…) which starts reflecting about itself. This process we call the social semantic web.

It is like a little kid starting to talk and to find out that language is about abstracting real things like emotions or feelings. This little person also starts to find out that language is not only about connecting some words, no, there are rules how to connect things.

The novel thing about the semantic web is that the first time in humanity we create a space where human beings will create reality together with computers. Since computers have on advantage compared to people that´s helpful indeed: They have a better overview. They “know” what´s going on in the internet from a higher altitude. YOU will always be the one who teaches the machine and if this collective process won´t be manipulated by some people this will be an even more effective symbiosis on the social semantic web than it´s already now on the Web 2.0.

Triple-I 2007: The next big discussion will be about privacy

First of all: I enjoyed this year´s Triple-I very much. I met a lot of friends and colleagues in Graz, had plenty of interesting discussions, I gave a talk about “Enterprise n+1″ (together with Franz Novak and Henry Story) and a semantic wiki tutorial (with Denny Vrandecic and Sebastian Schaffert), I have seen interesting keynotes and other talks and we all enjoyed very good food and excellent wine.

To get an impression of the great atmosphere of the congress go to Leo Sauermann´s photoset about the triple-i on flickr.

The congress showed that the interest for semantic technologies from industrial perspective has exceeded a level where it´s not necessary anymore to be a missionar, but rather to offer concrete products. Together with the huge changes in people´s minds which came in with Web 2.0 the Semantic Web will also offer some answers to the privacy discussion.

Marc Smith´s (Microsoft Research) keynote was an excellent example how fascination about what can be done with technology sometimes covers possible dangers too much. Marc was fascinating the audience a lot. He showed nice applications in the mobile social web. And at the end he warned: “Hey guys, do you really want to be observed by some companies?”.

Same thing with Peter Reiser´s (Sun Microsystem) keynote: He said, that Web 2.0 principles can be applied for internal knowledge management, but it will only be accepted if the privacy issue will be discussed beforehand.

So my question: Do you really know what Amazon, Google & Co. know about YOU – the person of the year 2006? And isn´t that another important issues also for the Open Data philosophy?

Web 2.0 meets the Semantic Web in September…

September 2007 will start with an exciting event (Triple-I in Graz/Austria) and will end with a top-class conference (Semantic Web Strategies, San Jose, CA) both dealing with questions about the applicability of the semantic web.

Since the global semantic web community is growing fast (many new technologies, start ups and more or less mature systems pop up every week) it is very important to keep track of interesting projects.

I will chair a semantic wiki tutorial (thanks to Sebastian Schaffert who is presenting IkeWiki and Danny Vrandecic who will explain the benefits of his semantic media wiki) and give a talk about “Enterprise n+1” together with Franz Novak and Henry Story from Sun Microsystems in Graz.

After I have made my long way to the Silicon Valley I will give a tutorial on the Semantic Web in general with a strong focus on economic issues. Again, Semantic Wikis play an integral role when explaining the benefits of the Semantic Web, metadata can´t be produced only by some experts. From a technical point of view it´s clear what´s exciting about the semantic web, but in what cases is it really applicable? How can a project roll-out be done? What role plays “semantic education” for the involved employees?

I am also looking forward discussing in a Keynote roundtable about Semantic Web Strategies for organizations. (See also: Interview with Bob DuCharme).

Still both, promoters and critics, have the same opinion: The Semantic Web is (or: would be) an exciting new option to enhance the Web (1.0 and 2.0) and Information Management throughout companies. Promoters are maybe still a bit too optimistic and enthusiastic and critics often are not aware how simple the semantic web can be applied. Maybe they will meet each other this year in September….