Category: Semantics

Categories
Connecting RDF

Microsoft, RSS, and CC

The big news at Gnomedex I gather was that Microsoft was incorporating support for RSS in it’s new generation of IE, IE 7.x, as well as other components of the upcoming Longhorn operating system.

In all the excitement, I’ve noticed that not many people have talked about whether IE 7.x will also detect Atom or RSS 1.0. Since several prominent weblogging tools don’t provide support for RSS 2.0, this does limit the effectiveness of the browser integration.

Considering that Firefox has syndication feed support, for RSS 2.0, Atom, and RSS 1.0, I’m not sure why the fact that Microsoft is playing catchup has everyone in a tizzy; I’m sure the reasons will become apparent…eventually.

However, I definitely don’t understand why folks are excited about Microsoft releasing its RSS extensions (lists, where have we heard this before) under a Creative Commons license. Even the CC people seem pleasantly surprised. After all, RSS 2.0 is licensed as Attribution ShareAlike, which says:

If you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work only under a license identical to this one.

True, if Microsoft received permission from the Berkman Center at Harvard, the company could release the extended RSS 2.0 without the CC license. I imagine, though, that Microsoft is indifferent to whether the extensions are used by others or not. None of this is exactly earth shattering use of technology.

As for Microsoft’s integration of RSS into it’s products, we’ll see how much of an impact this will be by the time December 2006 rolls around. A lot can happen between then and now.

The Channel 9 video about Microsoft’s use of RSS in IE 7.x says the company will also support Atom and RSS 1.0.

From the video, it would seem that Microsoft is looking at RSS and its extensions as the company’s entry into microformatting and tagging, as well as syndication. A sort of RDF Lite, Technorati Tag Heavy.

I can see a conflict already with RSS 2.0 and Microsoft’s use of RSS in regards enclosures. Dave Winer has said, there is one and only one enclosure only per item. Microsoft’s use implies multiple enclosures. I am assuming that the company is working around this issue with namespaces. Hard to say.

SOAP comes to mind — friends is all relative.

update

Someone commented at the IE Blog post on this announcement that the spec for Microsoft modifications is free-as-in-speech… Considering recent events, this may not have been the most helpful comment to make in support of Microsoft.

Categories
People Semantics

Danny gets sudsy

Recovered from Wayback Machine.

Mark Woodman did a nice interview with Danny Ayers on life, love, corner offices overlooking chicken coops, and cats.

Weeellll, not really. The focus of the interview was Danny’s steadfast work with XML, RDF, Atom, and his new book, Beginning RSS and Atom (an excellent book, by the way, and rich with detail and Lotsa Code).

Danny talks about RSS 1.0 and how the old gray mare ain’t what she used to be…well….actually, she is what she used to be. Anyway, he says not to discount the old girl just yet. Now the rest of the world is into Meta, her time has come.

One thing, though — RSS 1.0 is not RDF. By this, I don’t mean it’s not based on the RDF model, and created using RDF/XML. No, I mean that the two are not synonymous.

When I ported my soon-to-be released extensive metadata layer for weblogs to WordPress, the first problem I ran into was the tool used ‘rdf’ in URLs to indicated an RSS 1.0 syndication feed. In my own Wordform, I use rss1, which is much more accurate. RSS 1.0 is the syndication feed; RDF is the model/syntax. You don’t use ‘xml’ to indicated Atom, and you don’t use ‘winer’ to indicate RSS 2.0. So tool makers — stop using ‘rdf’ when you mean RSS 1.0.

I mean it. I’m going to start getting pissy about this.

Oh, and I also want to extend my congratulations to Les on getting engaged. Your lady is a luck woman, Les.

Categories
RDF

Integrated metadata

As you may, or may not, have noticed, I’ve been integrating various pieces of metadata into the site, primarily into each individual post. Eventually I’ll remove the ‘meta’ option for each page, and just provide a machine consumable RDF/XML option — the humanly readable components will show directly.

Right now I’m creating a plugin in that pulls the links within a post and adds these into the metadata as references associated with the post. I’ve also added a form that allows me to add references that aren’t linked in the post (and which are printed out at the end of the post).

I’m playing around with tags and other odds and ends, but I wish I could find the right combination of data and implementation to really effectively demonstrate how all this holds together.

Categories
RDF

What is a tag?

I’ve been incorporating the semantic data my application gathers into weblog posts. You can see it in operation over at Burningbird, in the individual posts (see references example below and the photo example).

During this, I ran into a wall on the topic of tags. I wanted to record tag-like information as RDF statements, but then I realized that I don’t necessarily know what tags are.

According to de.licio.us and furl, tags are ways of publishing bookmarks to a broader audience, in addition to categorizing your links. Since the sites are for bookmarking, adding links to your own work is frowned on.

In Flickr, tags are ways of categorizing your work, pure and simple. You may specifically use certain tags to participate in a community, but the majority of use is to classify one’s own work.

In Technorati, though, which is the one I’m most closely examining, a tag is a way of classifying your work for some purpose. According to the Technorati Tag instructions, you can link it to a Technorati page, but you can also link it to a Wikipedia or other page. However, according to the Technorati Wiki a tag is meant to reference a page that will aggregate the results (this is a wiki, note that text just quoted is subject to change). And therein lies the confusion about ‘purpose’.

If tags used in the sense that Technorati uses them are meant to help aggregate content actively, then yes, there needs to be specific pages and/or sites for the target URI–ones that actively gather and than republish incoming links.

However, if tags are meant to be more passively consumed, with bots going out and gathering the information, than as long as an agreed on format is used, any page can be linked (well, as long as you don’t link the same URL twice in the same document — Technorati sees this as spam).

I can’t map ‘tag’ into the semantic webspace using RDF if I can’t find a common meaning between all these distinct uses of the concept of ‘tag’. I spent time last night with this, and again this morning, but nothing fits.

I noticed that Norm Walsh used the relMeta wiki page as a namespace for a tiny self-contained schema reflecting ‘tag’ he uses in his taxonomy. That’s an option, I guess. But then, does that mean the Technorati namespaced schema doesn’t apply to de.licio.us, furl, and Flickr?

Categories
Semantics

Finally, the Poetry Finder

I am having far too much fun working on the metadata extensions to Wordform. So much so that I don’t really want to quit at night. Not only code–after I release the beta next week, I have several writings in the works that are going to be as much fun (at least to me). In fact, April could very well end up being my best month in weblogging.

I’ve finished a couple of the metadata extensions, and now I need to turn my eye and code on the final one I plan on releasing before the end of the month–the Poetry Finder. Yes that long promised and delayed functionality has finally found the place where it can be most easily integrated in every day usage; all that’s needed now, is to define the beginnings of the vocabulary.

 

That’s where you all come in. As I’ve said in the past, I have a limited high school education, only completing all my coursework for the 9th grade, and dropping out in the 10th. No regrets–I lived a life of wonderous adventure. However, a significant impact of this is that I did not have any high school English, including any studies about the form and format of poems.

I’ve learned a great deal, thanks to knowledgable webloggers who have shared both their interest and expertise. I’ve been introduced to both works and writers, as well as intepretations of same. I’ve found my own favorites among those I’ve met through others and on my own.

Still, there is a vast difference between appreciating a poem, and understanding the mechanics of one. In addition, there is much about how a poem or its component parts can be identified and described that I know absolutely nothing about.

I could spend weeks and years learning all about poetry; but then, you all could spend weeks and years learning how to program and work with operating systems so that you can make your own modifications or fixes. Each of us has unique knowledge that we share with each other and that’s, to me, the strength of this environment–even beyond the friendships we make.

Plus when working with technology, those who create the applications are frequently the worst when it comes to defining what’s important, and how the application is to be used. In my previous jobs, when we started to build a picture of the business data and processes, we would search out subject matter experts and get their help. Therefore I’m searching out subject matter experts among you.

You don’t have to be a poet or have taught poetry (though I have my eye on a few individuals) to help. If you know enough about poetry to define a poem and describe it mechanically; to understand the importance of concepts such as metaphors (and whatever else there is comparable); or you have ideas of how you would like to search for specific poems, please lend me a hand.

What I’m asking is for you to grab some poems, perhaps some favorites, and then pretend that you’re describing the poem for a group of tenth graders. What are some of the characteristics you would use in your description?

Now imagine doing the same with a group of friends.

Also, if you were to sit down at the Internet and go looking for a poem, what are your ideal search parameters? Would you look for a type of poem, or the period? Would you want to find poems that focus on a specific topic, or use a particular metaphor? Using a poet’s name or name of the work is a given–it’s for the more subtle searches that I need your help.

I know there are types of poems, such as haiku; poetic constructs such as stanza and meter; poetic imagery such as the use of metaphors; even periods of poetry. But I don’t know which of these is truly meaningful for describing, and most particularly, for searching.

The more responses, both from one person and from many people, the better the vocabulary. Though I need the poets and teachers in the crowd, I also need folks who just love poetry–or language or languages for that matter. I realize I could grab some of these terms and look for tags in de.licio.us and Technorati for relevant material, but I don’t necessarily have time for this particular tree to grow–I want to finish the components of the Poetry Finder this month. (Though I will also be examining these–the more input, the better.)

As I build the vocabulary, I’ll print it online so that you can check my work and my progress. I really do appreciate your help, and hope I can deliver something interesting in return.