Couple of days ago I finally got my invitation to twine. Twine is one of the first semantic applications, which tries to

[...] organize, share and discover information about your interests, with networks of like-minded people.

Triplify (which I’m still trying to understand) and zemanta came along later.
At first sight twine looks like any other social network. You have your account, your connections (friends), your submissions, your groups and so on.
But actually twine is much more, something I noticed even during my short presence in the platform.
I’m not going to write an extensive review of twine, since most of you already know about the service.

I’ll just say, that the recommendations and tags used by twine are highly related with the user’s search and that the submissions are of very high quality and diversity.
If you don’t know about twine here are some extensive reviews:

The first Mainstream semantic app?

Twine launches a smarter way to organize your online life

Lately, there has been some criticism on twine also. I cannot say that I disagree with the points, but it seems to be a very promising and qualitative platform - at least in comparison to other social networks.

10 invitations

If you’re interested in subscribing to twine and giving it a try on your own, I have 10 invitations.

Contact me and I’ll invite you. Remember I only have 10 invitations, so the fastest ones will get invited.

Last week I joined zemanta, probably the first user-friendly semantic application.

Today, I semantified my blog with triplify.

With triplify your blog will have the possibility to create mashups, exploit semantic search engines and many more options not yet explored!

It all looks kind of new and I haven’t concentrated yet on how to use the triplify data, but here is my guide on triplifying your blog.

How to semantify your blog

• Download and unzip the triplify script.
• Make the cache directory writable: chmod a+w cache/
• Edit the config.inc.php file. If you are on wordpress, drupal, wackowiki, openConf or OpenJournalSystems there is a complete example to download at the documentation. I would suggest though, to read this documentation as well, since it explains all parameters very well.
• Upload the triplify folder to your root directory of your site and type at your web browser: http://YOURURI/triplify. This will register your new RDF data source.
• And you’re done!

Slight change in my Configuration

By default triplify uses this code to read your database:

$triplify['db']=new PDO('mysql:host=localhost;dbname=db','dbuser','dbpass');

This didn’t work for me, so I used:

$triplify['db']=mysql_connect('localhost','dbuser','dbpass');
mysql_select_db('db');

Upcoming and more information

I will return (hopefully) during the week with more information on triplify and its mashup possibilities with Yahoo!Pipes and other applications.

When I look at the Registry of triplify, I can see my blog but without any vocabulary or actual size. I suppose it just takes some time, until the data comes in.

I’m not sure though, so if anyone has any information on that one, it would be great.

Some days ago a new service launched, called Zemanta, which integrates with the most popular blogging platforms (Wordpress, blogger, typepad) to suggest tags, links and images for your post.

After installing the firefox plugin, zemanta runs next to your content editor. When you have written a post of at least 300 characters, zemanta provides a list of resources.

Although, the service is still in an early version and there are some slight problems, it is nonetheless a very promising application.

Andy Beard’s review of zemanta is very thorough, if you want more information about it.

While reading about the service, it made me wonder how semantic is actually Zemanta?

The delay of the Semantic Web

What takes so long for the further development of the semantic web? In his interview on the semantic web, Tim Berners Lee explained that the technologies are already there; what is missing the implementation of these technologies in the current systems. The way I understand the complex term “semantic web”, what is required for complete semantic functionality is:

• semantic applications
• implementation of semantic technologies in the current systems

This implementation is actually a fundamental aspect of the semantic web, since it will certify the correct interaction between machines, databases and humans.

How semantic is Zemanta?

Zemanta comes in the blogosphere as one of the first semantic applications, open for the wider public (twine is still in ‘invite Beta’ version). Zemanta uses a semantic algorithm, which - according to the ReadWriteWeb - compares

the words in a blog post to their pre-indexed database of other content in order to suggest related items which will display next to your blog post.

This is of course great news for the further development of the web. We are witnessing and participating in the first semantic application. But although zemanta, works on a semantic algorithm, it cannot take full advantage of it. The reason is, that the current systems haven’t

Image from Wikipedia

yet implemented semantic technologies.

For the take off of the semantic web, linked data and killer applications are required. With Zemanta, we have a killer application, which cannot show its potential.

Until this point of writing the current post, zemanta suggests 9 images:

• 2 of Tim Berners Lee
• 2 of the wordpress administration interface
• 1 screenshot of OpenOffice
• 1 screenshot of Chatzilla
• 1 Data set in the linking Open Data Project (image on the right)
• 2 screenshots of two blogs.

It seems to me, that these suggestions do not take full advantage of semantics, but rather function “web 2.0-style”, based on keywords.

Conclusion

I really like Zemanta. It integrates in the new wordpess 2.5 very well and it makes blogging significantly easier.

Unfortunately, it is quite far from being a semantic application; not because it doesn’t have the correct background, but because the rest of the web is not ready yet.

But my hope is, that if we use the application more it will help the development team to expand the service and the whole web experience.

I just finished listening to an interview of Tim Berners Lee on the Semantic Web (63min). Very insightful information on the future and development of the Web. The relation of web 2.0 and web 3.0, the technological development of the semantic web and privacy are some of his points, that I found mostly interesting.

He underlines the ability of the semantic web to connect data with metadata. A function, which will make our work easier, faster and therefore more productive.

It’s the connection from the data to the provenance of the data, and not just for the name of the document that it came from, but the actual properties of that - the licensing, what it’s supposed to be used for, what it’s appropriate to use it for, whether I got it because I’ve gone through an authentication process, and actually whether it’s private data, which I should not actually publish at all.

Tim Berners Lee already sees some of the most popular social networks taking advantage of semantics.

They haven’t just allowed you to tag something with somebody’s name, they’ve allowed you to capture the difference between somebody who took the photo and somebody who’s in the photo, so that the power of the reuse of the data has been much greater.

He also talks about the development level of the semantic web, saying that the technologies necessary are already there.

I think, really we’ve got all the pieces to be able to go ahead and do pretty much everything. I suppose, really you should be able to implement a huge amount of the dream, we should be able to get huge benefits from interoperability using what we’ve got. So, people are realizing it’s time to just go do it.

The only piece missing from the semantic puzzle is the actual implementation of these technologies to current systems. An effort, which - according to Tim Berners Lee - is easy and financially worthwhile.

But, the thing that’s holding us up is that, there’s data which the companies have got on this, sitting and going round and round on its disks. Or it’s in their SQL systems and needs to be exported in a way that we can get at it in linked RDF as a SPARQL. And then, that could be reused.

One more remark, that drew my attention was about privacy. Tim Berners Lee advocates for openness of data - at least in a company level. He supports exposure and integration; companies should give the ability to the people to do queries on their data. This can give them a great advantage against their competition.

If a company has got this feeling where people don’t want other people in the company to know what is going on, then, it has already got a problem, this just exposes the problem.

On a more individual level he argues, that users should get hold of their data. That’s where the semantic web really diverts from the web 2.0 model. The web 2.0 model incorporates sites, which have their data and they don’t share it. The Web 3.0 gives the power back to the user

Web 2.0 is a stovepipe system. It’s a set of stovepipes where each site has got its data and it’s not sharing it. What people are sometimes calling a Web 3.0 vision where you’ve got lots of different data out there on the Web and you’ve got lots of different applications, but they’re independent.

There are much more information to be collected in this interview. This were just the stuff I found most interesting. Marshall Kirkpatrick concentrates on other subjects.

So don’t be satisfied with any short summary, listen to the actual interview or read the transcript.

If you have been following the news lately, the web is undergoing a transformation. This transformation is a good thing; it simplifies the communication between man and machine, it breaks the rules of distance and introduces software which bring the cyberspace to unknown pathways. Surely, that is a good thing.
But there is a problem behind this transformation. It is not actually a transformation, it is “transformations”. Three different movements are striving to bring the web into its new phase and revolutionize it.

The semantic web

The semantic web has been online for quite some time now. We hear it, some even see it, but in the end it still isn’ t there. The semantic web will give the tools to the machines to understand and learn the semantic language of humans. It will be based on openness and it will bring software, which will work in a traditional emergent manner.
The semantic web (or web 3.0 or Giant Global Graph - GGG) is

about letting it be connected to data from peer sites. It is about letting it be joined to data from other applications.

The Data Portability project, OpenId and even google’s new social graph are certainly steps towards this direction.

Web of Data

Then we have the Web of Data. Something I first read about yesterday at Richard MacManus’ post. Richard writes about a speech Tom Coates gave, talking among other about the world of tomorrow. According to Coates’ vision the cyberspace will invade real life:

1. A physical object responds to or visualizes data from the network.
2. Interacting with a physical object allows people to change data stored in the network.
3. A physical object acts as a sensor that writes to the web of data.

This is surely an enlightening view of the future, a view we have probably only seen in science fiction movies. Still Tom Coates brings examples of software already succeeding in the field of web-real life interaction.

Revolutionary Software

Finally, Robert Scoble wrote yesterday about a new software currently under development in Microsoft, which will change the digital world. NetMeeting, Netscape and Photoshop were such software. Now Microsoft works on something similarly radical. We all have to wait unti the 27th of September for more information, but Scoble sounds fascinated already.

Decentralization of objectives

All these - and probably more projects that we’ve not heard of yet - are encouraging efforts to develop and evolve the web. I eagerly wait to see how things online will develop. But I also see a small problem here: decentralization.
I’ve already written, that I’m an advocate of decentralization. Many different agents working on a goal, without any central control. But here we are not seeing decentralization of work, but decentralization of goals.
Every institute is trying to change the web on its own way, without collaborating with others. I have the feeling they all have the same upper goal (revolutionizing the web), but different means to achieve it. Decentralization of objectives usually brings confound, disorientation and certainly failure.

Competition is always a parameter of evolution in any market. But if we see the development of the web’s next generation as a race, then we also agree on its commercialization.

Being supportive and being skeptical

Forgive me for being biased on this one, but I tend to trust more the vision of the semantic web for 3 reasons:

1. It is supported by the World Wide Web Consortium, an institution which constantly proves its belief in openness and innovation.
2. It is the only vision of the next Web, that we know so many about and therefore proves its openness.
3. It gives the tools for better commercial interactions, but it doesn’t make the web commercial.

Why I’m skeptical about the other innovations.

1. Tom Coates talks about the importance of openness of data (weblogs, RSS), but he directs his remarks to marketing: being open will drive people to your service, people will pay for it, make your service more attractive, etc.
2. Microsoft is a universal colossus based on providing software to the market and doing its best to keep them on top. I acknowledge Microsoft’s contribution to the web and digitalization in general, but I’m very skeptical on any software it provides. The United States vs. Microsoft case proves my skepticism.

I point out here, that the nature of the other visions (a presentation I didn’t attend to and a software not yet published) does not allow me to be subjective. My skepticism is based on prior experience and not on the current projects. So please any oppositions, feedback, additional information will be appreciated.

An interesting discussion started yesterday, if digg (and all similar networks) is a user generated content site.
Allen Stern argues, that

With Digg, you find a good piece of content, and then submit a link to that story on Digg. That’s it. The Digg submitter submits 250 characters to describe the story but 97.85% of the time, the submitter is pulling the description from your story.

Therefore the content of the submission is actually a link (disregarding the short description). If we compare Digg, StumbleUpon, Reddit with Youtube and Wikipedia, User Generated Content has a completely different meaning.
So Allen considers digg a UGC aggregator.

On the other hand Josh Catone, relies on Wikipedia’s definition of UGC to say that:

Stern’s objection to Digg being a user generated content site seems to focus around the word “content” — as Stern argues, much of the submitted content is unorginal. But the comments on Digg, no matter how useless some might find them, are original media content provided by the users for publication on Digg — which is enough to fit the Wikipedia definition, at least (and this is why we might say the comments section on any media site are an example of user generated content).

Surely YouTube and Wikipedia are traditional UGC sites, but Digg is also one. At least it is “…a user something site”.

The eye of the beholder

Most of the comments in both posts agree with A. Stern, that Digg is not a UGC site. As I remarked in Stern’s post, I believe, that the definition is in the eyes of the beholder.

• You can say that the content OF Digg is generated by its users. Which is true. Everything you see on the digg site is uploaded by users. So it is a UGC site.

• But you can also say that the content ON Digg is actually the links pointing to the actual source. Which is also true. You cannot judge a post just by the short description on digg, you need to go to the actual source. So it is not a UGC site.

Emerging subjects

1. Semantics: as Sean Tierney and Tim Marman commented, the debate is based on the fine term of content. A similar debate could be started about blogging. If you have a link-blog (comments enabled and all the blog stuff), is your content generated by you, the user?
2. Hypertext: Roland Barthes has argued (and that in the late 60s), that “the unity of a text is not in its origin, it is in its destination.“ Which means, that the reader is the one who will actually combine all the hyperlinks/citations used in a text in order to comprehend the text as a whole. Content is all the links/references used in a text. Under that perspective, maybe digg is indeed a UGC site. The hyperlinked nature of the web constitutes almost every writting, user generated. You just have to follow the links.

Update 23.01.2008:

My question is: if digg is not a user generated site, why does google link to its content?

A post in the ReadWriteWeb a couple of days ago, guided me to a very interesting document. A summary of Project10X’s Semantic Wave 2008 Report (available here).
I just finished reading the report, which provides some very insightful information about web 3.0. The semantic web will transform the web from an information-centric to a knowledge-centric system, by developing 4 fundamental attributes:

1. Knowledge

The web is a fragmented place. Knowledge is scattered in all its corners, sometimes locked in operating systems and complex algorithms. The semantic web, will pursue to change this. It will facilitate technologies, which will extract knowledge and

will enable communities to create, curate, and share knowledge in human readable and machine executable forms.

2. Transparency

Information will evolve in knowledge, through its encoding in a semantic form, which will be transparent and accessible at any time to any machine. Knowledge was previously stored either in human readable or in machine readable form. In the semantic web, it will be stored transparently, so that users and machines will be able to read the same piece of data. In that way, it will be possible for data to be used, validated and combined with other data. This will allow

a system to “learn” to do things that the system designer did not anticipate.

3. Connectivity

To overcome the limitations and restrictions of OS platforms, the semantic web will encourage a real time usage of automated and semi-automated methods, of interaction between man and machine:

Web-tops; platforms spanning multiple OSs connected over the internet
Mash-ups; two or more data sources or works combined to become a new data source or work
Context-aware mobility; dynamic composition and personalization of services across devices, networks, locations, and user circumstances and
Semantic service oriented architectures; using machine-interpretable descriptions of policies and services o automate discovery, negotiation, adaptation, composition invocation, and monitoring of web services.

4. Technology

The key of the sematic web is the usage of technologies, which represent meanings and knowledge seperately from content, in order to be interpretable from humans and machines. Such representations will range from pattern recognition, analogy and reasoning with uncertains to deep linguistics and causality.

The integration of social Web and semantic technologies in Web 3.0 allows new synergy that lowers the cost of data and knowledge creation, and raises the computational value of gathering.

The semantic technologies, which will power Web 3.0 will concentrate on:

• Semantic user experience (how the user comprehends things)

• Semantic social computing (how users communicate and collaborate)

• Semantic applications and things (how products and behaviors can be seen empirically and objectively)

• Semantic infrastructure (interobjective network-centric systems and ecosystems)

• Semantic development (how meanings and systems can share what they know)

Epilogue

The report refers also to semantic technology markets and other interesting points. It explains the the information I shortly mentioned above very well and I definetely suggest you to read it.

The 4 attributes I listed above gave me the impression, that they are the key traits, which will revolutionize the online experience. Where, the emergent behavior of the whole system will bring user interaction in new levels. I believe, that the development of services such as data portability and openID are steps to this direction. But, to a certain degree, it is a personal preference.

I’m interested to see, which attributes of the semantic web do you find most revolutionary.