BurningbirdDare Obasanjo has a good post today on the failure of URIs when it comes to their role as identifiers within the Semantic Web, and points to a TAG discussion thread and a referendum on this issue.
I don’t subscribe anymore to the TAG emails–too male, too pedantic–so I appreciate having these items pointed out.
Still, Dare sums it up best with The saga continues.
Recovered from the Wayback Machine.
rdfdata.org’s newest data source is The London Tube’s Schedule in RDF/XML. The data is used by the online tubeplanner.com.
Putting this data into RDF/XML is a wonderful idea. Can you imagine the possibilities if other London organizations started putting their events into an RDF/XML feed? Add yourself into the mix with FOAF, and a bit of glue such as a relationship defining ‘want to see’ and ‘want to attend’ and you have a way to pre-plan a trip to London, virtually at a click of the button.
I’ve been in London once, staying in a lovely hotel not far from Buckingham Palace. I found this hotel and got a nice deal through one of the online trip planners, I can’t remember which. But if this is thrown into the mix, and then add in plane reservation information (not to mention specials), you could arrange to get to London and back all at the click of a button. Just tell the system generally when you want to go, what you want to see, class of accommodations and flight and budget, and let it go to town.
If the data is present the technology now exists to not only schedule everything, but also print out several alternative itineraries, including Tube information coming and going from your hotel. Not only that, but the application could even print out maps of a certain size and format to fit into checkbook sized map holders with a clear plastic side, so that you can put all your maps into the holder, and then shift them as needed as you travel about.
You’d never get lost. You’d see everything you wanted to see. You’d spend what you want, but still get as close to the class of accommodation and flight you want. And you’d still have plenty of time just to wonder about and see the subtle aspects of London that seem to not get mentioned in Guidebooks.
Wait a sec – why not connect in Fodor and other guidebooks so that the system could recommend places that are similar to those identified in your ‘want to see’ relationship. That way you’ll see the Tate Modern, as well as the Tate Britain. Or that nice art gallery that had all the sketches of Botticelli’s Dante that inspired me to buy that huge book containing reproductions and a description of each.
And you have to eat, so why not describe in your FOAF file your likes and dislikes, whether you love Indian food, if you’re a vegetarian, and do you like to dress up for dinner. Then have the system suggest eating places near places your visiting. That way you can have time for a really nice Tea every day; because if you go to London and don’t have afternoon tea, you’ll miss one of the loveliest customs there is – skip lunch, go for Tea, eat dinner late. You’re in Europe, time to leave the Midwest 5pm supper at home.
Of course if you’re into spontaneity, you don’t need all of this. You grab a flight whenever it’s cheapest, throw your stuff in a backpack, land, find the nearest hostel and pub, meet the locals and then follow wherever the impulse leads you. Nice enough if you’re young, but when you’re a mature woman such as myself, hoping to connect up with locals in the pub just doesn’t have the same appeal it once had. Well, it does really; but there’s something seedy about a 50 year old woman going to a pub trying to connect up with the locals. Too bad really, but I’m not ready yet for the tour buses, either.
Besides, I’m all for have plenty of time to wonder around – but I don’t want to miss seeing both the Tate Britain and the Tate Modern, and having a lovely Tea in my beautifully situated and elegant hotel. And still have money left over to bring home a genuine London brolly.
Much of the work for all this has already been started, as you can see from Dan Connolly’s work and others.
Once London has been RDF’d, then we can turn to Paris, and New York, and Rome, and on and on. Interface all of this with PDAs and cellphones and I’m sure we could hook on to the iPod subculture in some way and quicker than Bob’s your uncle, you’ll have a piece of the Semantic Web, (that big letter one), based on bits of data borrowed from the semantic web (the ragtag one).
I’m ready to start. All I need now is venture capital money. Someone want to send me to London so I can ride the Tube, again?
urh…Poppy? Hydrangea? Lilly?
Weed?
I thought I would break in with a little tech talk and discuss FOAF, or Friend of a Friend. If you hang around weblogging for any length of time, you’ll probably come across this term. Might be nice to know that it’s not some kind of new goverment regulation.
FOAF is XML created using a specific RDF (Resource Description Framework) vocabulary that allows you to provide a file with information about yourself, and basically, who you know. It’s the brainchild of Dan Brickley and I believe Libby Miller, and has its own support site and blog, though I’m not sure if the weblog is still being updated.
You don’t usually make a FOAF file by hand–either it’s created for you by your tools, or you can use the FOAF-a-matic, a handy forms-based tool that generates valid FOAF XML for you. You can then copy the contents into a file, named something like foaf.rdf, and put this file into the same location as your weblog. Some weblogging tools can do this for you, and you’ll need to check with yours to see if it does, or doesn’t manage FOAF files for you.
To enable people to autodiscover your FOAF file, you can then add the following into your primarily web page, in the HEAD section:
(Note, I had to remove the example because it was not showing up in the page, even with angle brackets being escaped. This most likely is a bug with the underlying tool implementation. The link to autodiscovery also shows the code.)
To see a badly outdated version of a FOAF file, you can check out mine.
Now that you have an idea of what it is, you might be wondering what’s it good for.
Some weblogging tools use FOAF files to auto-generate blogrolls for a weblog. Some people might consider this a goodness, but I’m not one of them. The reason why is that just because you know someone doesn’t mean you want to recommend to the world that they read them.
Others build libraries of photos and friends’ photos using FOAF and it’s image capability, which could be particularly useful for managing photos across many different web sites but based on the same event.
There has been talk of using FOAF to build a Web of Trust — to be able to state who you trust in FOAF and then a person knows based on this that they can also trust them. Though there has been a great deal of work on FOAF and privacy and accountability, the vocabulary isn’t there yet, and even the creators would be hesitant about recommending FOAF as it stands now to be used for a basis of trust.
There has also been discussion about extending the FOAF vocabulary to expand the types of relationships available. However the concern on this is the impact something like this could have, if one person considers you a friend and you put into your FOAF file that they’re just someone you know. And do we really want people to know whom we love, have birthed, work for, and so on? Sometimes. Sometimes not.
However, using relationships internally in an application, something such as an address book, could be very useful — but then why use FOAF, which is primarily used to create networks based on publicly accessible FOAF files.
Regardless of use and opinions about FOAF, it is now the second most widely dessiminated example of RDF/XML in use today, after RSS 1.0. And if you hang around weblogs, you’ll be stumbling across it at one time or another. More than that, the tools you use may be asking you whether you want a FOAF file or not.
Another significant event that webloggers have participated on is the discovery that documents used on a CBS 60 Minutes were most likely fake. These documents were purported to be written by a young George Bush’s commanding officer, where he complains about having to bow to pressure and give Bush preferential treatment.
Webloggers went into full cry immediately, primarily focusing on the font used in the papers, saying that it couldn’t possibly be from a typewriter of that time — it looked more like the work of a recent Word document, instead.
Unlike the Lott event, the CBS Documents Event is still fresh, and I believe it was PowerLine that cast the first doubt on the veracity of the documents, as did other webloggers, as noted in this NY Sun article.
(Note, it may have been Little Green Footballs, according to this story.)
Also unlike Lott, there is some contention that the instigation into the investigation of the documents was derived primarily from weblogger focus. Articles also appeared almost immediately about the documents, such as this article at CNN. (Like the Trott event, we hope to get a page up at the wiki listing all relevant weblog posts and articles.)
Almost from the start CBS had to defend itself, and eventually retract their support of the documents, and Dan Rather, who led the story, acknowledged that they had made a mistake, and apologized.
The whole event was over in a little over two weeks, but while it lasted it became a firestorm within weblogging, dominating discussions so much that it was difficult to find sites that weren’t weighing in with an opinion.
Still, as Rather had apologized, and CBS had issued a retraction, what other course was there to follow? It would seem that people would have to decide if they wanted to trust CBS News, or Rather, but mistakes do happen and even professional journalists have been known to stumble a time or two. Still, what was wrong was corrected.
But the issue didn’t die out. Now that webloggers had prevented dubious material being accepted as fact the assumption might be that the topic had run its course, but this wasn’t so. Now the webloggers focused on punitive actions against CBS, generally, and Rather specifically–calling for him to be fired. It’s here when weblogging moved from prevention to punishment; from Beauty to the Beast.
Roger L. Simon was one who called for the firing of Rather saying:
Currently Drudge is reporting: Rather, who anchored the segment presenting new information on the president’s military service, will personally correct the record on-air, if need be, the source explained from New York.
What a pathetic response. Even with a correction, can you imagine ever trusting a word out of Rather’s mouth again? Can you imagine respecting CBS, “Sixty Minutes”?
Not me. If Rather does not resign, those institutions will wither with their anchorman.
The term Rathergate was coined to talk about Dan Rather’s error and what the webloggers perceived was to be a CBS company cover-up. The Blog Herald considers something like this site to represent the promis of weblogging. A weblog was created from it, to urge people to write to the advertisers and let them know that they should pull their ad money from the station. Others started sing-a-longs mocking the term and Rather and CBS News. Most, though, just called for vengence. Fire Rather, eliminate CBS readership.
Tthe anger wasn’t just confined to Rather and CBS. When a Professor at a Utah university wrote a paper about how the documents could be legitimate, he came under fire from webloggers who began to see in him a part of the Conspiracy, whatever the Conspiracy was. They didn’t just discredit his writing; they discredited him, trying to get him fired. When he edited his document, they pointed to this as an example of his duplicity; him being unaware of weblogger’s almost manic obsession with never editing material after posted (an obsession not adhered to by yours truly, by the way).
Eventually a new scandal came along, and the webloggers have moved on to other topics, where far too many swarm on issues, like bees on particularly juicy flowers. This leaves us now in a room full of tattered yellow tape, trying to decide if that pulped matter on the floor is the remains of Dan Rather, or just the remains of so many tossed rotten tomatoes.
We’re also left with questions, such as why did webloggers feel compelled to continue the clamor against CBS once the company admitted its error, and apologized for it, as well as broadcasting a correction?
Many would say because we all have a moral right to ensure that the press knows that we’re always there, fact checking them, and that the free and biased ride they’ve been on is over. Others would say that the punishment of Rather did not fit his crime of broadcasting fake material critical of George Bush so close to an election.
But there is an element of links and power to this story; that many jumped on the Rathergate bandwagon because that’s where the buzz was, and like blood attracting sharks, webloggers, particularly political webloggers, are attracted to buzz. The more buzz, the more links, and the more power a weblogger obtains — we only have to look at PowerLine’s swift rise in the ego lists to see the combined effect of a hot issue and careful handling. This explains continuing with the story as long as possible–not just to exact retribution, but also to extract the maximum amount of links and power from the story as possible, before moving on to something new.
Many people point to the webloggers involvement in exposing the CBS Documents as fraud, as an example of one of our finer moments, and there is some justification for this pride. But there’s also more than a little about this affair that should make all of us pause; to take stock of the power of the link, the danger of a mob, and remember old sayings about ultimate power corrupting ultimately.