the Semantic Web, Tim Berners-Lee

Here is the Q&A with Tim Berners-Lee

http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/apr2007/tc20070409_961951.htm

And for me, the following is interesting.

In your speech at Princeton last year, you said that maybe you had made a mistake in naming it the Semantic Web. Do you think the name confuses some people?

I don't think it's a very good name but we're stuck with it now. The word semantics is used by different groups to mean different things. But now people understand that the Semantic Web is the Data Web. I think we could have called it the Data Web. It would have been simpler. I got in a lot of trouble for calling the World Wide Web "www" because it was so long and difficult to pronounce. At the end, when people understand what it is, they understand that it connects all applications together or gives them access to data across the company when they see a few general Semantic Web applications.

One comment:

Chris Glasier Apr 12, 2007 11:17 AM GMT
I think we should stop looking to total software solutions and get to grips with information - in particular relationships between things. Relationships change depending on the intended activity; for example, a table means a table, but a restauranteur will associate different things with it than a joiner, an accountant and so forth. We should move towards making methods of working object-oriented, using the objects as placeholders to attach or retrieve information (the work). This can only be carried out by people who understand relationships between things (practitioners). Part of the Internet simply becomes a machine for many different types of work.