Semantic micro-blogging may sound like a mouth-full of techno speak, but it’s actually a fairly simple subject that has attracted a large following recently. Semantic micro-blogging is essentially a publishing method that allows short bursts of information to be aggregated under umbrella categories and easily synthesized on the web. But to understand semantic micro-blogging, one must first understand its component pieces: blogging, micro-blogging, and the semantic web. What is a blog? A blog — short for weblog — in the broadest terms is a form of online commentary. It is often text-based (video blogs are called “vlogs”), separated into entries, and presented in reverse chronological order. Blogs and blogging have become popular over the past few years as a form of publishing short-form opinion, analysis, and even fiction on the internet. And with the growth of blogs and their emergence into mainstream society, many corporations and other large entities have begun “blogging” to keep the public at large abreast of their plans, ambitions, and day-to-day activities. At its core, a blog is an internet-based publishing platform. It is a cheap, easy-to-use method of disseminating information over the web. What is micro-blogging? Micro-blogging is blogging on a small scale (usually under 200 characters). The difference between micro-blogging and blogging is accessibility and readability. Micro-blogging involves recording very short, “stream of consciousness” thoughts onto whatever medium the micro-blogger wishes. Sites like Twitter and Facebook have popularized micro-blogging as a means of communicating quick thoughts to a large number of people instantly. It is a fast-paced, slimmed-down version of blogging that allows users to push thoughts, rather than ideas, out to a large network of people. The advantages of micro-blogging over blogging within the accessibility and readability parameters mentioned above are a function of a micro-blogs size. Small messages can be written and read very easily on mobile devices. This makes micro-blogging a much more practical means of communicating when away from a computer. One interesting implementation of micro-blogging has been through citizen journalism. This application of the service has added a new dimension to the platform and very well may prove to be its most important and compelling use. What is the semantic web? Semantics has to do with the meaning of words. And when applied to the web, it has to do with the association of content with different words. The essence of the semantic web is found in a web search — the results that come up when you search for a certain word or phrase. As the web becomes more semantic, search functions and content aggregations will become more precise. Putting it all together Semantic micro-blogging involves “grouping” micro-blogs together into threads via semantics. On the Twitter service, this involves using a hash (#) followed by a keyword to target a specific search term. The purpose is to collect messages of the same tone or purpose and make them easily digestible for research or educational initiatives. The reason semantic micro-blogging is innovative is that it’s basically a group of thoughts, categorized within a keyword or phrase, that can be archived indefinitely. It’s a recordable zeitgeist on the internet. For more information on Semantic Microblogging, visit semanticmicroblogging.com and micro-blogger.org
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Semantics is not something new to the internet or websites. Semantics have been around since the ancient ages and we use them almost everyday in some situation or the other, vocally or in writing. Effective communication today consists of grammar, punctuation, sentence structure etc. But here is the surprising part: there are different sets of semantics being used around the world.
In English, you will not find the use of or as they are not English semantics. These differences can create problems in delivering effective communication through a semantic web.
HTML
HTML stands for HyperText Markup Language and it is like the universal web language. HTML is an easy to use and flexible code/language where you can integrate text and graphics together to create a scalable website. But HTML has one major drawback. Although it can define what content to place where on a web site page, it can not really discern the relationship between the content and its use for providing valuable results for various user queries. This is exactly the reason why SEM exist.
For example: There is a HTML page of product listings. The HTML code will define this as but it will not be able to identify item #2342 as a lip moisturizer that costs $3.99. This is the limitation of HTML and it will only be able to identify a text block that describes the lip moisturizer and it should appear right next to the image of the product.
SEM on the other hand use proper semantics to identify the relationship between various chunks of text on websites. The semantics help the visitors to identify the relationship between the lip moisturizer and its image.
There are two objectives that can be accomplished by web site owners by using different semantic standards. Firstly, the semantic standards will enable different web site designers to describe web site content accurately to SEs and secondly the semantics will facilitate a clearer mode of communication between SE spiders and the web site. As a result, your website will get targeted traffic.
RDF/ OWL/ XML
As you have learnt that there are certain limitations of HTML and hence to fight these limitations, different programming languages have been developed. Some of the programming languages include RDF or Resource Description Framework, OWL or Ontology Web Language and XML or eXtensible Markup Language. These programming languages have increased the usefulness multifold for the web.
If you use only HTML then it will not be possible for the search engine to produce useful links for keywords like graphic designers in Florida. The SERPs will display numerous graphic designer sites from all over the world, out of which some will be situated in Florida. It is not that this specific information is not available; the fact of the matter is that it is contained within web pages of different sites, all of which are indecipherable to web spiders.
W3C and Semantics
The W3C or the World Wide Web Consortiums primary objective is to standardize, and improve www. It is a daunting task and will also entail the standardization of different development tools, programming languages, as well as browser specs.
Among many challenges, one of the important is the standardization of the semantic web technology, which is under construction. One of the problems is that there is nothing as universal semantics. The semantics for English will not go with the French semantics. The writing styles like a research article with footnotes and bibliography is different from a blog and hence will employ different types of semantics. This makes W3C standardization of semantics virtually impossible.
Semantics and SEO
The main objective of creating semantic standards is for making the websites easily viewable or readable on different machines or browsers. Standardization of semantics will allow the SEs to spider the content and index it based on specifics. A good SEO will be able to do this during site optimization and you can very well imagine the kind of positive results that will arise out of optimization of semantics.
The future will see search engine users being able to access local events, news, local sales, and compile content which is similar from multiple sources access the data within a user-defined context.
The standardization of semantics is still in its early phases and we will have to wait some more before we get to benefit from the entire process.
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Web 3.0 describes the next evolution of the World Wide Web. The term “Web 3.0” has been floating around for quite a while now, but what does it exactly mean? The true definition of Web 3.0 has been unclear ever since it has been created. When trying to get a hold of the concept it is important to keep in mind that Web 3.0 is rather a buzzword and doesn’t clearly define anything.
The semantic web
The term Web 3.0 is very often mentioned together with “the semantic web”. Some people refer to the semantic web as an equal to Web 3.0, others consider the semantic web part of Web 3.0. What does “the semantic web” mean though?
A clever example in an attempt to make sense of the semantic web has been made by Peter Berkel. Take the words Paris Hilton; is there actually anybody who’s thinking of the Hilton Hotel in Paris? The meaning (semantics) of these two words can be interpreted in multiple ways.
In order to understand semantics on the web we also need to look at the syntax. If we use the sentence “Mike loves Kate”, the syntax refers to the composition and structure of the sentence. The semantics indicate that Mike really likes Kate. If we change “loves” into a heart symbol, the syntax will change but the semantics will stay the same.
In the example of Paris Hilton we see a reversed situation, in which there are multiple semantics but only one syntax.
In the communication between computers on the net, the syntax has an important role. When you request a website to show up in your browser, you’re actually doing a request to a web server. This server looks up your request and returns this in HTML format. Your browser reads the HTML syntax and translates this into a designed page. The meaning of what’s on this page will stay unknown to the computer.
The same thing happens when we search for information on the internet. A search engine searches through billions of pages to find the keywords that you requested. It will then show you a list of pages that include the keywords you were looking for. The search engine knows which keywords are in these pages, but the real content of the pages remains unknown. This could be compared to learning a parrot a couple words, which it will replicate without knowing the actual meaning of the words.
Using this analogy, the current web can be considered as a “web of documents”. These documents are all linked to each other in one way or another, but for web applications the content of these documents is undefined. The content however is what’s of interest to us. These documents are about people, history, companies, countries, etc. Right now we’re not talking about documents anymore, but about “entities” that are inside of these documents. The goal of the semantic web is to let computers understand the entities within these documents.
So the semantic web gives meaning to entities in web pages and relationships between those entities. In contrast to the current web, this would be a web of entities.
The benefits of the semantic web
So now we got to a better understanding of the semantic web, how can we benefit from this? Take the example of Paris Hilton. If a search engine would understand that I’m trying to find a Hilton Hotel in Paris, all results about the celebrity Paris Hilton could be excluded. This brings us to better, more accurate and faster results. This is still a plain and basic example. A next step would be an application that understands Hilton is a hotel in Paris, which can offer me more services. If you are searching for a Hilton Hotel in Paris, a Hilton Hotel could be found, while a flight to Paris could be booked together with a restaurant to eat at. This makes the results on your request a lot more valuable.
Maybe this sounds pretty familiar; when you book a flight you’ll be asked if you want to rent a car as well. This question however has been realized through a cooperation of multiple web applications. In the semantic web no cooperations or agreements have to be made since all information is universally available.
The semantic web will have a huge scale availability of information. Roughly, there are two different approaches that will lead to a semantic web: the bottom-up and the top-down approach.
The bottom-up approach implies adding information to all existing documents on the internet and making them understandable for web applications. This ‘information’ describes the entities in a webpage and all their relations. This can be done through RDF or Microformats.
Supporters of the top-down approach consider the bottom-up approach very unpractical. They don’t believe in a fully annotated internet. The top-down approach supports the development of applications that are able to have a better understanding of the data in documents. Think of tracking back the meaning of entities out of the context of a page, but mainly applications that can understand natural/logical language. Hakia (www.hakia.com) and (www.powerset.com) are Search Engines that do an attempt on understanding English in the way humans understand it.
Whatever approach will be used, the web will be more meaningful and more valuable. All entities will gather a cloud of attributes and relations. A danger would be an information overload. Ideally we only want to absorb information that raises our interest. The need of ‘personally tailored information’ will keep on getting more important.
Personal preferences
Personal preferences could be left under the control of the user. The APML (Attention Profile Markup Language) workgroup has been working towards this concept. Your profile in APML can be seen as a file with your personal preferences. Web applications are able to read this file which results in your information being filtered to your own interest.
An even bigger amount of profile information will be outside of the users’ control. At this very moment, organizations such as Google, Amazon and Yahoo are registering the clicking behavior of its visitors. In a semantic web this information will become way richer. A lot more is known about the people that visit their websites. Next to that, the web is becoming more pervasive. We are in contact with the internet all the time and will do so more and more; in our browser, our cell phone, our car, home devices, etc. Web applications will be able to register information everywhere. Profiles will be built full with information about yourself, without you noticing it.
Within this new relationship between the Web and its users, marketers will have to ‘slip into someone else’s conversation’. Brands will have to be relevant to the user’s situation, setting and desires. When the semantic web is realized and successful, it will create a huge load of information exchange between organizations and individuals, producing a new level of findability and knowledge sharing.
Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_3.0
http://www.mediapost.com/publications/index.cfm?fuseaction=Articles.showArticleHomePage&art_aid=57532
http://www.frankwatching.com/archive/2008/06/09/de-klassieke-benadering-van-web-
http://www.tamingthebeast.net/blog/online-world/semantic-web-30-0707.htm
http://www.chiefmartec.com/2008/03/marketing-in-th.html
Lifecapture Interactive (www.lifecaptureinc.com) provides interactive solutions for our clients that are directly responsible for a rise in sales and brand awareness or a drop in costs within your organization. Each solution is custom to the client served. More articles can be found at
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Future Internet – Supported by STI International: www.sti2.org With over a billion users, today’s Internet is arguably the most successful human artifact ever created. The Future Internet, an initiative driven by the European Union, has become a prime research focus of STI International and the Service Web 3.0 project. In order to explain, promote, and attract new contributors, we created a video to be viewed by stakeholders, who may be non-experts, in a new generation Internet. The video outlines the basic themes of the European Union’s Future Internet initiative. These include an Internet of Services, where services are ubiquitous; an Internet of Things where in principle every physical object becomes an online addressable resource; a Mobile Internet where 24/7 seamless connectivity over multiple devices is the norm; and the need for semantics in order to meet the challenges presented by the dramatic increase in the scale of content and users. Supported by STI International: www.sti2.org
semantic web
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