A lot of activities around Linking Open Data (“LOD”) and the associated data sets which are nicely visualised as a “cloud” are going on for quite a while now. It is exciting to see how the rather academic “Semantic Web” and all the work which is associated with this disruptive technology can be transformed now into real business use cases.

What I have obeyed in the last few months, especially in business communities, is the following:

• “Linked Data” sounds interesting for the business people because the phrase creates a lot of associations in a second or two; also the database crowd seems to be attracted by this web-based approach of data integration
• “Web of Data” is somehow misleading because many people think that this will be a new web which replaces something else. Same story with the “Semantic Web”
• “Linking Open Data” sounds dangerous to many companies

For insiders it is clear, that the “openness” of data, especially in commercial settings, can be controlled and has to be controlled in many cases. Which means, it can be one-way or mutual. In some use cases data from companies will be put into the cloud, and can be opened up for many purposes, in other use cases it will stay inside the boundaries. In other scenarios only (open) data from the web will be consumed and linked with corporate data, but no data will be exposed to the world (except the fact, that data was consumed by an entity).

And of course: In many other occasions datasets and repositories will be opened up partly depending on the CCs and the underlying privacy regulations one wants to use.

This makes clear that LOD / Linking Open Data is just one detail of a bigger picture. Since companies (and governments) play a crucial role to develop the whole infrastructure, we need to draw a new picture:

I´ll be happy to have a lively discussion about this topic also at the first Linked Data Camp in Vienna.

Einstein was wrong

Sure, Wolfram is Alpha, and Wolfram has potential. Wolfram has nice visualisations, an API and it is fun to play around with. But Wolfram|Alpha makes a lot of mistakes. Some are fundamental and some are just a matter of low quality data Wolfram Alpha is based upon.

• No German speaking people in Switzerland?
• Einstein was wrong?
• Mr Gusenbauer is still head of Austria? (which he isn´t since months)

I know that these are “European details”, but that was exactly what I was predicting when Wolfram|Alpha wasn´t online yet: It will be a nice knowledge base for a lot of engineers, but cultural & political domains are not that easy to “calculate”, especially when it is based on European history.

I would suggest: Don´t try to calculate the whole world but rather concentrate on that kind of stuff where knowledge really is “computable”.

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Happy Easter!

Today we had an interview date with Markus Mooslechner from ORF (Austrian Broadcasting). The TV-Show “Newton” will discuss next Saturday how social media affects our lives, especially how one can make sure that private data won´t be used improperly, e.g. by certain internet providers.

My colleague Tassilo Pellegrini gave some nice examples how some providers like Facebook explicitly state in their privacy policy that they are allowed to hand over all personal data to any other third party (“…our service providers may have access to your personal information for use for a limited time in connection with these business activities”).

It´s a shame that some fundamental rights regarding privacy have dissipated in just a few years.

Also today, I asked Chris Bizer, doubtlessly one of the key-players in the semantic web community, some questions for an interview. Among other things I was also wondering if he thinks that the Semantic Web could solve some privacy issues or if Linked Data will rather become a synonym for “transparent user” (Gläserner Mensch).

We will see, what Chris thinks, the interview will be published soon.

Since the Linked Data paradigm is attracting a lot of attention – also in a lot of different industries which aren´t used to internet driven business processes, I am wondering, which are the best cases for them to build parts of their information management strategy on top of the “Web of Data”.

It´s quite obvious for media industry how to use linked data, or for internet companies like Amazon, but what´s in for a, let´s say, insurance company, as soon as it comes to the point where they should expose parts of their data for the “Web of Data”.

One point to start the line of arguments with is: “Why do you have a website at all?”.

Has resistance something to do with the ability to “control” a traditional HTML-website? Because as soon as mashups play a role, it´s not as easy as it was before to see,

• who,
• when and
• why

someone uses one´s data.

On the other hand, is OpenCalais really “open”? It´s not possible to use the services without an API key. So all the questions above can be even better monitored than before, as soon as you have registered users using your LOD services. OpenCalais´ way to serve customers might become very soon a model for the business layer above the LOD cloud in general.

Since the LOD cloud is kind of the basic infrastructure which drives the whole process – this layer should remain a freely accessible one. But how could new business models be built on top of it (and constantly spend money on maintaining and extending the underlying infrastructure)?

Where could enterprises start using Linked Data? Only by retrieving data from the “outside” and mash it up with the “inside” – only one way?

I think we can learn a lot from one of the “oldest” networks on earth: The energy business is re-structuring a lot at the moment, and it foresees a lot more “mashups” than before – even single households with their own little plants will be able to PRODUCE energy, not only consuming it.

This has advantages for many stakeholders (except the shareholders), so what does it mean for the internet business – when will it transform from a centralised network into a more decentralised one? Which role will all the huge “information plants” like Google play?

Information has no “place” anymore, energy can´t be shipped around the world. We should rethink the meaning of a “data store” and information will flow without flooding us. Linked Data might become the essence.

My colleague Jana Herwig amazes me regularly in terms of being not only innovative but by implementing plans.

Her latest gig: She produced a short movie on make.tv about our new book “Social Semantic Web”. (Sorry, clip & book are both in German)

The cool thing about this tool is obviously that videos can be produced on quite a high level within hours (if you´re as quick as Jana .

Call for participation (Open until Dec. 22, 2008):

The survey aims to uncover the current state of information and awareness regarding the uses and areas of application of Social Software and Semantic Web technologies. A special focus is put in using these technologies in companies and public organisations. The survey is addressed to individuals from the industry and research alike and wants to contribute to gaining a better understanding of the potentials and barriers for the application of new web technologies.

Link

It took a while and I was waiting for the book to come like a child waiting for Christmas. But now it´s out – our new book: Social Semantic Web (Web 2.0 – was nun?).

Springer: Social Semantic Web

Web 2.0 – and now? This question is answered by 49 authors in 24 articles.

One hypothesis which is discussed in this book: Especially the idea of “transferring” Web 2.0 into an Enterprise Environment should be backed by semantic web technologies.

Read more about this book (in German) in our Semantic Wiki.

Applications based on semantic technologies offer new ways to discover, browse and explore information – this is for sure. But how can we (as a semantic web “insider”) explain these potential benefits to a typical end-user, who has never heard anything about “faceted search” before (which doesn´t mean that he wouldn´t love intelligent user interfaces if they were in place)?

The answer are mockups (in a sense of prototyping user interfaces). Although even Google has started recently to implement a little bit semantics by offering auto-complete functionality on google.com (on some local versions like google.at this feature is still not available) most basic concepts for an intelligent search interface are still not common sense.

We are that googlized that nearly none of us can think of different ways of searching for information than Google has offered for many years now: Put a couple of words in a text box, click a button and scroll through a list of headers and abstracts. Repeat that until you´re done. Wow!

Of course, many people get irritated instantly by complex user interfaces like David Huynh´s Freebase Parallax. “That´s only for experts!” is their response. But in a corporate setting complex queries belong to our daily business – they are just not supported by common search engines (only exception are data mining solutions). But that doesn´t necessarily mean that we wouldn´t need it.

Where is the way out of this dilemma?

• Explain to the end-users how semantic technologies can enhance search & browse experiences
• Do not use terms like SPARQL or RDF
• Create a simple mockup to explain it
• You´re not a designer? Use tools like Balsamiq – Try it now!

Here is an example for a mockup of a semantically enhanced expert finder:

These kind of mockups are essential for any requirements engineering phase in any project where search is a bit more than a text-box, a button and a bunch of documents.

When Mariano Consens explained at this year´s Triplify Challenge @ I-Semantics in Graz how he built together with Oktie Hassanzadeh the winning project “Linked Movie Database“, one important thing became clear to me: Linked Data isn´t just a playground anymore, no: it´s a very efficient way to build useful applications standing on the shoulders of giants. Congratulations to the winners!

Mariano Consens