Recovered from the Wayback Machine.
I had to add a whole new category just to reference these two resources.
First, an excellent summary of the recent semantic web discussions, annotated even, can be found at Themes and Metaphors in the Semantic Web. Thanks to Chris for pointing it out or I would have missed it.
What I like about it is the way it personalizes the discussion, which can’t help but make it more ‘meaningful’, pun not intended. Comments are here.
Secondly, a new weblogger has joined the semantic web effort at a blog called Big Fractal Tangle. Timothy Falconer is off to a good start with:
Before the Semantic Web can come close to delivering on its promise, we need to find ways to convince non-technical types into wanting to think abstractly. Academics, developers, and businessfolk are unusually organized compared to “the rest of us,” which is why this may be hard to see at first. Hell, forget annotation. We’ve got to find compelling and obvious reasons for them to want to use metadata.
Saying that the web will never be more intelligent than it is today is the height of arrogance. This is no different than saying that because we can’t create it today, or today’s dreamers can’t dream it today, or it can’t be touched and has no physical manifestations today, it can never happen. If we believed this in other science, we not only wouldn’t be on the moon, we wouldn’t be on this continent.
Having said this, however, the only way we’re going to convince grandma or Uncle Joe to use meta-data is for us to listen to what they want and need and then give it to them, slipping meta-data in through the seams. May not win a Nobel, but may give us the semantic web.