Stefan Decker on the Semantic Web

I just noticed the article from Dan Zambonini "Is Web 2.0 killing the Semantic Web? ". From my perspective the article shows a misconception that people seems to have around the Semantic Web: the Semantic Web effort itself does not provide applications (like the Web 2.0 meme indicates) - it rather provides standards to interlink applications. So for Web 2.0 (or the Semantic Web 2.0) Semantic Web recommendations provide a way to interlink applications. Within DERI we are actually building examples - these include the SIOC specification to semantically interlink community sites, a Semantic Blog, the Social Semantic Desktop, and more. The most interesting part is that the step from a Web 2.0 application to a Semantic Web 2.0 is a small step, but it creates lots of tangible benefits. For a better explanation see the previous blog entry.

UPDATE (October 24, 2005): I just got notified that the panel was canceled since the conference organizers felt there was too much semantics involved. Oh well...

I just accepted an inivitation for a panel at the 3rd International Conference on Service Oriented Computing (ICSOC), Amsterdam, The Netherlands, December 12-15, 2005. The titel of the panel is "Semantic Web and Semantic Web services: Can One Go without the Other?". The other panelists are Amit Sheth, John Domingue, Frank Leymann, and Martin Hepp. As a Semantic Web scientist this is an irresistible opportunity to get grilled within the European context, which is very heavily invested in Semantic Web services.

Without a doubt Semantic Web Services have their application area, but in the first place the Web is a communication and collaboration medium between humans - and this potential has not been fully exploited so far. This slide describes the idea and the path forward looking at the social semantic side of the Web.