Semantic Web – beginning of the intelligent web?

By raheem

There’s been a lot of talk about the semantic web recently and not too many of them make sense. So I am going to take a hack at it and try to make sense of the semantic web. Essentially the idea behind the semantic web is to make the web meaningful to machines. Webpages, the building blocks of the web are mostly text that is intelligent to humans, but not to machines. Sure, a computer is able to parse thru and look for words in a web page – but not much else.

Consider a UPS package. The package is meaningful to the sender and recipient. But to a UPS computer, it means nothing until the UPS man sticks a bar code on it. Now it is readable to the UPS computers. Even better, the UPS computer knows from the barcode that the package has a destination and a source; it has characteristics such as weight, delivery requirements, etc. Now using its own intelligence about routing and package volume, the UPS computer system is able to route the package to the right warehouse, the right flight and the right truck and ensures timely delivery. (If only the airlines were as good as UPS with out luggages!)

The semantic web is attempting to do something very similar with the web. Its about taking each site and making it meaningful to machines or more specifically to software. This would enable advancements such as having software agents that are able to do more than just pull the latest news (RSS). An intelligent software agent would understand you and its own environment – the internet and act appropriately. Such understanding (intelligence?) would enable it to do more for you. Your agent would be like a personal assistant – intelligent enough to know your unique characteristics and handle tedious tasks such as scheduling that doctor’s appointment or knowing that your wife prefers Italian but since you have high cholesterol would suggest Italian restaurants in your area that have a “light” menu.

Such a web would unleash a new wave of innovation and the potentials are mind boggling, both in terms of technological progress as well as financial prospects. However, its not easy because unlike UPS, no one owns the internet. This makes it hard to implement standards – standards that can help to impart meaning to the myriad items in the internet. The research continues and already startups are taking a hack at creating businesses based on the semantic web. Check out Radar Networks and Metaweb.