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[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message] RE: WSIO vs. Semantic Web
 > BUT I agree with Tim that it is ultimately Ballmer's fault that > this is a crisis. Nobody was smoking Web Services crack until the Actually, I might have misread Tim, but I thought he was blaming Ballmer for provoking him into a strong comment, not blaming Ballmer for ruining the web and getting everyone addicted to crack. > would have spent some time sorting out the implications of HTTP + > XML + (pick your favorite metadata scheme) + (pick your favorite > discovery mechanism) BEFORE promising that it would be bigger than I completely disagree -- I think we *are* at a point where we can say that the semantic web and webservices will be huge. This assessment does *not* require all of the techniques, best practices, etc. to be set in stone. We know that these will be huge because we can hear the rumblings of user demand, see the degree to which technology has evolved to make these practical, and so on. I really don't think these things need to be coddled, nurtured, and groomed -- they are inevitable. > are pure dope smoke, and none of us has a very clear idea of which > is which. That is exactly why we have these focal points, in my opinion. The start of the web was not a carefully-engineered phenomenon, and neither will these be. At least this time around, we have even more lessons from which to learn (and just like HTTP was informed by SMTP or NNTP, I see plenty of evidence that things like SOAP, RDF, etc. are trying to learn from the lessons we've gained so far). The hype around web services and semantic web serve to clarify a vision that people work towards. Ballmer isn't claiming that anyone has "the one true religion" of how to do web services; there has got to be some degree of real-world growth of participation and feedback of best practices. Now, forgive me for inserting my opinions about why the perceived mismatch in hype about web services vs. semantic web. I think that these are complimentary things that target different communities. "Web services" are ultimately more interesting to businesses. Web services are not a whole lot different from "the web" right now. Vendors can have a big influence on propagating standards, etc. And the value proposition "what can it do for me" is graspable by most business people, so therefore the hype value is high. "Semantic web" in my opinion is much broader, and is interesting to end-users. As individuals publish metadata, it is very different from the publishing profile of the traditional web -- Microsoft.com probably won't provide server space for you to annotate your opinions about the site, so your metadata will have to be stored elsewhere. So if a user browsing Microsoft.com wants to know what all of the annotations are how does she know where to look for the annotations? The point is, "semantic web" will by necessity involve lots of decentralized and independent work, and there is not as much power for large companies to play a driving role. I think the only companies that could have significant influence on this evolution will be search engines. Now, because of the broad impact and grass-roots effect that semantic web will have, I think it deserves as much hype as web services. However, I think that interest suffers because there is no clear value proposition for users to grasp. People say, "the semantic web must be cool because TimBL says so" or "the semantic web must be cool because it will let me use AI to figure out how many iguanas live in houses in Arizona". But this is not the foundation for real widespread interest. The value proposition that excites people should be like the one that got people excited about the web; "You mean I can publish a document and anyone in the world will be able to link to it? You mean I can link to anyone else's document and even if their server crashes, my page is fine? WOW!" This was a value proposition that anyone could *immediately* participate in; nothing theoretical about it. The semantic web is even more exciting than that, and has just as many immediate opportunities for people to do things that matter to them *today* rather than wait for us to figure out "the grand unified theory of reifying everything", so I do not know why most people think of it as "some sort of AI thing that TimBL likes". In fact, my personal opinion about why there is not more activity from people writing killer apps for the semantic web is simply that they are all got [expletive deleted] into the black hole of trying to write a knockoff version of a 30 year-old operating system to give away for free :-P 
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