With the help of Semantic Technology rather than locked into siloed, proprietary data formats that impede storage, access and retrieval, data pieces would seamlessly become interoperable and easy to integrate.

1. Semantic
Technology
Origins and Modern
Enterprise Use

2. 1
Semantic Technology refers to a set of standards that allows
computers to understand, share, use and reuse data.

3. 2
Adding semantics (as the name of the technology suggests) to data pieces,
semantic technology, unlike the traditional technologies, allows for the smooth
and efficient data integration and interoperability.

4. Although not limited to
applications for web
resources only, it is
Semantic Technology
that lies in the heart of
the Semantic Web, or
the Web of Data.
3

5. Far from done, the Web of Data, just as
the Web of Documents, is slowly but
steadily growing, together with the
adoption and maturity of semantic web
technology from various enterprises.
4

6. The origins of Semantic Technology can be traced back to the not so distant
1989. Back then Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web
was working on his vision for the Web, which in its very essence was about
“anything being potentially connected to anything”. 5

7. 6
This is how the World Wide Web,
as we now know it started. Today,
the Web is a powerful means for
collaboration. We publish, share,
access, use and reuse documents
and files of all conceivable formats.

8. 7
As exciting and disruptive as
this is, it is not the full potential
of the Web. The full potential of
the Web will be unfolded
through Semantic Technology.

9. 8
Semantic technologies are the building blocks of one more layer to the Web,
for it to become the Web of Data - a web where computers are able to
manipulate information on our behalf, meaningfully.

10. 9
For the Semantic Web
to unfold, data on the
Web are to be put in
an understandable
and processable by
machines format.
The very same
paradigm is now wildly
adopted for tapping
into enterprise data
lakes.

11. With the help of Semantic Technology rather than locked into siloed,
proprietary data formats that impede storage, access and retrieval, data
pieces would seamlessly become interoperable and easy to integrate.
10

12. Not unlike
the document web,
integration of structured
and unstructured data
involves universal, agreed
upon standards.
It is important that
data pieces are available
in such standard formats.
11

13. 12
For example, just like
there’s lingua franca for
representing documents
on the Web and that is the
Hypertext Markup
Language (HTML), RDF
is a common format for
data to be represented
and shared.

14. 13
A standard model for data interchange , RDF is among the main
building blocks of the Semantic Technology Stack, together with other
Semantic Web technologies, such as OWL, SKOS, SPARQL etc.

15. These standards, along with the other Web standards, are being
developed at The World Wide Web Consortium. They are solid and
have as much industry support as the basic specifications that make
WWW work: HTTP and HTML.
14

16. It is these Semantic Technology
standards, that will make the
Semantic Web function.
And these standards are
not only limited for Web
use.
15

17. 16
Semantic Technology
is also a cost-effective way for enterprises
to manage their data internally.

18. Using universal data
representation standards
will allow for more effective
search, automation,
integration, and reuse
of content across various
applications, opening
countless opportunities
for more cooperation.
17

19. People and organizations, as the W3C Data
Activity’s vision has it, will be able to share
data in a way that enables others to derive
and add value, and to utilize it in ways that
suit them.
18

20. The use of Semantic Technology
will ease the communication of
computer systems and
make machines (and us)
capable of understanding
mountains of data.
19

21. And this is how Semantic Technology will add machine analytical
power to our creative processes of knowledge management and
discovery, be it across the Web or within various enterprise datasets.
20

22. www.ontotext.com
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Interested to learn more about how and why Semantic Technology
Standards are serving more and more enterprises to make sense of their
data? Check the Knowledge Hub section on ontotext.com for white papers,
case studies and more resources on semantic technologies.