Blog: Facebook is the Private Beta of the Semantic Web. Facebook recently announced their intentions to become the center of the universe for online identity and social connections. While the new functionality of the Facebook Open Graph is exciting and represents a real glimpse into the interconnected semantic web, it has also sparked numerous concerns about placing so much power into the hands of a single company. As it turns out, not everyone on earth is content with having their Facebook profile be the only representation of their identity on the web. To those sweating over the level of control and power this gives Facebook, I say: Yes, if Facebook perpetually controlled identity and semantic “Liking” that would be very bad for the web as a community. And it seems like it will be difficult to overcome the hurdle of that damn “Like” button on every page on the internet, right?
I mean, sites aren’t going to want a NASCAR array of “Like” buttons cluttering up the place. Terraforming the Web Firefox and Chrome are the Key. RSS Primer from the Read/Write Web. One of my 3 sessions at the upcoming eLearning Guild Conference in Boston is about RSS and eLearning. So, it was wonderful luck to find a great post from Alex Iskold on the Read/Write Web blog called The Future of RSS. "In short, because of RSS ubiquity it is now a very attractive delivery medium for all kinds of content. However because the basic format is simple and primitive, there is no way to encode semantics without building an extension. So in this post, we look at RSS today and ask if RSS is evolving into a tool for delivering complex, semantically rich information. " Read the entire post if you want a brief primer into the background of why RSS is important to Learning professionals.
The Future of Internet Search. Exit from comment view mode. Click to hide this space NEW YORK – Imagine that Googling an address gave you a list of the closest buildings, ranked by distance. Not exactly what you were looking for, most likely. But that is pretty close to what we still accept for most Internet searches. You don't get what you actually want to finish your task; you get a list of pages that might lead you to it. That is beginning to change. Consider the development of online search in the broadest terms. Social networking brings a new insight. But what happens when, influenced by their friends, people actually go to buy something or take some action? Now, however, something is happening to fix this, and it’s not just a prettier background. For example, what people want (and are now getting) in product search is not a list of pages, but a set of products displayed in some meaningful fashion.
Some areas, such as travel, are even more complex. This all happened a couple of years ago – just before Yahoo! Semantic Technology Conference - Everything about the Semantic Web. The Future of RSS. There is little doubt that RSS is a disruptive, game-changing technology. The so called Really Simple Syndication (previously also called Rich Site Summary and RDF Site Summary), has powered a fundamentally new way to deliver and consume web content.
Before RSS, users had to visit individual web sites to find out what was new. Today, news is delivered via RSS directly to web browsers, desktops and aggregators. With RSS, the dynamics of the web changed into an on-demand medium. RSS usage has since spread beyond simple news delivery. In short, because of RSS ubiquity it is now a very attractive delivery medium for all kinds of content. Brief History of RSS RSS is an XML-based language and its early roots can be traced to back to 1995, to Apple Labs and then slightly later to Netscape, Userland Software and Microsoft. RSS survived mainly because of one man's heavy-lifting - Dave Winer. RSS in a Nutshell Each RSS file consists of items delivered in a single channel. Why this matters Conclusion. Swoogle Semantic Web Search Engine.