How cumbersome will working with numerous database administrators be? If it is a database, it will certainly be the largest - and noisiest - database in the world. This so-called noise is a big problem for the semantic web.

Another problem is that for many topics there is a vast surplus of information available - how do you find out the richest links? On the other hand, it is democratic, crowdsourced, scalable knowledge engineering, which makes the semantic web a great knowledge base for humanity.
Freshness has always been important for search and over the last months ‘live-search’ has become very popular. Due to the popularity of social media sites like Twitter, search engines have had to go hyper-fresh. People are creating a constant stream of new input, which can contain very useful and especially up-to-date information. But these hyper-fresh content services are creating new problems for search engines. Tweets aren’t always written in English and there are only 140 characters available to broadcast your message. Because there are only 140 characters, semantic technology can be quite helpful in extracting the true meaning of a message. Through semantic technology it’s possible to detect entities that are referenced and disambiguate them.
Search engines like Bing (Microsoft) are already implementing semantic technology for extracting information. “All search engines are somewhat semantic already” according to Scott Prevost, Principal Development Manager for Bing. Whatever the real definition for semantic search is, “it’s already here but it hasn’t been a ‘Voila!’ moment. Semantic search won’t be a big revolution from a new startup, but there will be game changers”. Scott has had first hand experience here with Powerset, often called “The New Google” in the media before their acquisition by Microsoft in 2008 as a feature for their search technology.
Semantic technology, like all technology, needs a certain critical mass. The good thing is that the ecosystem is growing at the moment, with more and more publishers helping out. But the main focus of semantic tech companies should be on creating systems which can automatically promote open content, so we won’t be dependent on the efforts of publishers. By creating this kind of technology the costs of semantic publishing will shrink to almost zero in several years, just as online publishing did during the web 2.0 era.
The technology is here now - there are already more than 1600 APIs and they are growing at a non-linear accelerated rate. People are starting to work in the cloud as the new data center and it is the illusion of infinite scalability and omniscience that serve as inducements. Tom Gruber, a recognized expert in Artificial Intelligence, intelligent interfaces, semantic technologies, and presenter at Web3.0, strongly believes in the “Gigantic Join” which he thinks web 3.0 will become. The semantic web will include the possibility of numerous “joins” of APIs, and his latest product Siri.com is built on this idea. Siri is a mobile device-based question and answer application using speech as input, and is built on a collection of available APIs.
This application is a good example for the upcoming mobile web, which is creating new rules, and possibilities for the semantic web. Mobile devices create new sources of input - users don’t speak in keywords, they ask questions in their native language. These new ways of input have to be interpreted, and that’s where semantic technology kicks in. “Semantic technology is the hottest area of web architecture right now,” according to Dr. Greaves. “It’s a new way of thinking about the web as we know it” says Scott Prevost.
You could indeed feel this vibe at web 3.0. People are eager to learn from each other, sharing thoughts and inspiring each other. In the coming weeks I will dig deeper into some of the Web3.0 topics related to semantic technology like SEO, search and business and opportunities.

Ten is the start of a new decade and the third decade for the Web. The third decade is often seen as and referred to the decade of the semantic Web. So I think that it’s a great way to start this new decade in 2010 by attending the Web 3.0 conference deep in the the heart of the information technology forest - Silicon Valley.

During the previous decade the Web was getting more social. Through user generated content the web is growing containing more and up-to-date knowledge. API’s for making web data accessible are more common, so in future connecting knowledge is getting easier.

Semantic technology is ready to get mainstream and leaving the research labs. But businesswise semantic technology is still often difficult to pitch and understand. Could semantic advertising create a success? Having more knowledge about content could increase the ROI for advertisers due the increased relevance of an ad? How can semantic technology enrich our web experience, making user information needs more meaningful. Could the growing mobile Web create a breakthrough for semantic technology?

Adding semantic technology time-to-results can be increased which is important for ubiquitous mobile devices. What are search engines like Google and Yahoo doing with semantic technology? Are they only implementing it to increase time-to-result or do they see other advantages? What is the future of semantic search in general? Should start ups compete in the market of the search giants? Or should they just concentrate on universal solutions and implement search for a smaller domain?

I’m confident Web 3.0 will give some great new insights and we will report back from our experience and findings at this event.

About ESTC

History
The European Semantic Technology Conference (ESTC) was established in 2007 to aid in the dissemination of semantic technologies to European industry. The first conference in the series was held in the impressive surroundings of the Palais NiederOesterreich in Vienna, Austria. The program was made up of a mixture of academic and industrial papers, with a focus on those showing a real application of semantics. In 2008, the conference returned to the Palais NiederOesterreich changing the structure of its program to match more closely that of the Semantic Technology held yearly in San Jose, California since 2004. The new structure focused on presentations on experiences with utilizing semantic technologies in industry. ESTC continues to be a major focal point in the European conference calendar, where new semantic technologies can be disseminated to industry and industrial experiences with adopting these technologies can be reported.

Mission
The European Semantic Technology Conference brings together the world’s leading thinkers, innovators, developers, engineers, and senior practitioners within organizations responsible for information technology and systems in one place to learn about how to integrate this unparalleled technology into their operations. ESTC is Europe’s most prominent and authoritative conference focusing on the growth of the ICT semantic technology markets, highlighted by showcased industry practices, advancements in the field of semantic technologies achieved in the past year, and successful marketing strategies in delivering semantic applications that generate new revenues. Participants know how to develop a cohesive strategy for managing semantic technology initiatives and utilizing these to evolve the operations and effectiveness of their organizations.

http://www.estc2009.com/about-menu

The 9th and 10th of December I’ll attend the LeWeb conference in Paris again.

This years speakerslist:

• Chris Anderson, Curator Ted
• Marissa Mayer, Vice President, Search Products & User Experience Google
• Aapo Bovellan, Head of Product Management Nokia
• Paulo Coelho, Author
• Helen Fisher, Visiting Research Professor Rutgers University
• Reid Hoffman, LinkedIn Founder
• Dan’l Lewin, Corporate Vice President for Strategic and Emerging Business Development Microsoft Corporation
• Joi Ito, CEO Creative Commons
• Amit Kapur, Chief Operating Officer MySpace
• Didier Lombard, Chairman & CEO France Telecom Orange
• Nikesh Arora, President EMEA Operations & Vice President Google UK Ltd
• David Weinberger, Harvard Berkman Center for Internet & Society Harvard University
• Werner Vogels, VP & Chief Technology Officer Amazon.com
• Kaiser Kuo, Group Director of Digital Strategy Ogilvy China
• many more ..

This Monday I will attend the NPOX 2008 conference which will be held at Beeld & Geluid (great architecture) at Mediapark Hilversum. NPOX is a conference organised by the Dutch Broadcasting Corporation (omroep.nl). The main idea behind this conference is to give people working at NPO an update about all the things that are happening in the world of (cross)media.

Blogpost on tristanthomaskenrickteunissen.nl about the Semantic Web

Today Picnic 2008 starts at the Westergasfabriek in Amsterdam. I will attend this conference. This years lineup is as impressive as eclectic again.

Today we launched a new solution + API. Since more and more (mobile) application use short-url redirectors like tinyurl.com or twurl.com a lot of usefull (semantic) information gets lost. An url can tell a lot about the content of a page, and what you can expect before visting. By turning an url in a short one, its like reading a book without a cover. Normally you can’t bother, but when you use your mobile phone for browsing, you don’t want to wait 30+ seconds to discover what the content is of that tinyurl somebody posted through twitter. You want more information.

Therefor we developed a new automata which can handle a short-url request and give all usefull information back in XML (and soon Json). At the moment this xml-file contains: Source-Url, Target-Url, Domain Name, Title(tag) of the target url and since a lot of people are using tweetburner.com it will even show the twurl stats. Other elements will be added, for example we’re working on a parser to create pure text content from a page for happy mobile browsing.

Twitstat.com is already using our new API, for the purpose we intented; all the short-url are rewritten in the mobile version, so you can instantly see to which website you will be redirected.

For more information or access to the API, contact Tristan (tristanATw3lab.nl)

Last tuesday Tristan (Teunissen) was invited for a meeting about Open Social at Google HQ Amsterdam. You will read more about this meeting at Dutch Cowboys.

See the Momo site for more info.