How is the Semantic Web vision unfolding and what does it take for the Web to fully reach its potential and evolve from a Web of Documents to a Web of Data through universal data representation standards.

1. Cooking Up
the Semantic Web

2. 1
In the not so distant 1989 hardly
anyone has ever imagined an
informational space where all
the information from a variety
of computers, file formats and
networks would be linked.

3. 2
Except for one person: sir Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web.

4. Back then, at CERN, he was working on his vision for the Web, which in its very
essence was about “anything being potentially connected to anything”.
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5. “Vague, but exciting”,
were the words that Mike Sendall,
Tim-Berners Lee’s boss wrote on the proposal,
allowing him to continue.
4

6. And this is how the World Wide Web started its
unfolding - as an Information Management proposal,
at the European Organization for Nuclear Research.
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7. 6
Today, the Web is a powerful means for collaboration. We publish,
share, access, use and reuse documents and files of all conceivable
formats. This brings profound changes to society’s patterns,
empowering users and fostering the emergence of highly networked
communities.

8. 7
Yet, as exciting and disruptive as this is, the Web hasn’t reached it’s full
potential. There’s one more layer to be built. A layer that will take
collaboration to the next level. A level where computers are able to
manipulate information on our behalf, meaningfully.

9. 8
This next stage of the Web, Tim Berners-Lee saw as an extension of the
current Web and called the Semantic Web.

10. 9
For the Semantic Web
to unfold, data on the
Web are to be put in an
understandable and
processable by
machines format,
rather than locked into
siloed, proprietary data
formats that impede
storage, access and
retrieval.

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

13. 12
A standard model for data interchange on the Web, RDF is among the
main building blocks of the Semantic Web Stack, together with other
Semantic Web technologies, such as OWL, SKOS, SPARQL etc.

14. 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.
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15. It is these Semantic Web
standards, that will make the
Semantic Web function. And
they are not only a matter of
technical advances but also a
matter of social agreement.
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16. This is why, as far as data are concerned, the Web is far from done. Still, the
same daunting task of managing, sharing, reusing and processing is before
us, who weave the web. Only this time the task applies to machine-readable
information.
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17. M a k i n g s e n s e o f t e x t a n d d a t a
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.
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18. M a k i n g s e n s e o f t e x t a n d d a t a
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.
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19. M a k i n g s e n s e o f t e x t a n d d a t a
The Web will evolve into
a space where
“everything is linked
to everything”,
and something more,
information is shared and
understood not only by
people but also
by machines.
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20. M a k i n g s e n s e o f t e x t a n d d a t a
The use of Semantic Web Standards will allow for the communication of
computer systems capable of understanding mountains of data. That in turn
will add machine analytical power to our creative processes of knowledge
management and discovery, be it across the Web or within various enterprise
datasets.
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