THE EVOLVING SEMANTIC WORLD

Barbara McGlameryTaxonomistMartha Stewart Living Omnimedia

ABOUT ME Masters in Library and Information Science

Long Island University

New York Public Library Branch librarian NYPL for the Performing Arts – Drama reference

Entertainment Weekly Data Manager

Time Inc. Senior Data Manager, Taxonomist, Metadata Architect,

Ontologist

Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia Taxonomist

WHAT IS THE SEMANTIC WEB?

The Semantic Web is a web of data…. (it) provides a

common framework that allows data to be shared and

reused across applications, enterprise, and community

boundaries.

--w3c

"The Semantic Web is not a separate Web but an extension of the current one, in which information is given well-defined meaning, better enabling computers and people to work in cooperation.”

--Tim Berners-Lee, James Hendler, and Ora Lassila, Scientific American, 2001

The Semantic Web is about making knowledge

machine and human-readable

---- Amit Agarwalhttp://www.labnol.org/internet/web-3-concepts-explained/8908/

Web 1.0 Web 2.0 Web 3.0

Connections Collaboration Intelligence

Big S semantic web

Little s semantic web

BIG S SEMANTIC WEB

…big "S" web technologies provide a

framework for describing data on a web page when

the data on the website is published. If data is read

or captured, because the data's semantic meaning

has already been described, you don't have to go

through the process of understanding the meaning

of the data after the fact.

--Sean Martin, CEO of Cambridge Semantics

LITTLE S SEMANTICS

Little "s" web technologies capture and filter data with no description or understanding of the data provided after the capture process. The process of understanding the meaning of that data starts once data capture has happened. People have to intervene to provide the context and meaning for language on the web.

--Sean Martin, CEO of Cambridge Semantics

Big S–

W3C approved

standard

Little s

Looser groups of unaffiliated

standards

BIG S SEMANTICS

ESSENTIALS OF BIG S SEMANTIC WEB

URI – Uniform Resource Identifier

RDF – Resource Description Framework

OWL – Web Ontology Language

Semantic reasoner (inference engine)

URI – UNIFORM RESOURCE IDENTIFIER

Way to identify things Images, pages of text, locations

De-referenceable Freebase

http://www.freebase.com/view/en/will_smith

• URI’s are unique, no two are the same• Will Smith http://www.freebase.com/view/en/

will_smith

RDF – RESOURCE DESCRIPTION FRAMEWORK

Framework used to describe relationships between objects

Extends and formalizes XML

Subject>Predicate>Object

RDF – RESOURCE DESCRIPTION FRAMEWORK

Subject>Predicate>Object

http://ew.com/PersonsTax/Will_Smith

http://ew.com/EntertainmentOnt/leadPerformanceIn

http://ew.com/EntertainmentTax/Movies/Bad_Boys

Will Smith Bad

Boys

>> >>>is the lead actor >>>>>>

OWL – WEB ONTOLOGY LANGUAGE

…designed to be used by applications that need to process the content of information instead of just presenting it to humans

-- W3C

OWL – WEB ONTOLOGY LANGUAGE

Metadata model Extends RDF to further define properties

Ex: Equivalent relationships

>> >>>is married to>>>>>>

>> >>>is married to>>>>>>

SEMANTIC REASONER

Software able to infer logical consequences from a set of asserted facts

Follows inference rules specified by OWL properties

Inverse Transitive Symmetric Functional/Inverse functional Equivalent

PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER

Ontology Rule set

Classes and Properties

Taxonomy Application of Rule Set

Tags and Relationships

Everything is a statement Subject>Predicate>Object

Ex: Will Smith is lead performer in Bad Boys

BENEFITS OF RDF/OWL

Persistent URIs

Verifiable XML

Unambiguous Relationships

Polyhierarchy

Interoperability

LIMITATIONS OF RDF/OWL

Difficult to propagate across web

Challenge to integrate with legacy systems

Expensive queries

No “Killer App”

SEMANTIC WEB LAYER CAKE

LITTLE S SEMANTICS

RDFa - Resource Description Framework (in) Attributes

W3C recommendation that adds a set of attribute-level extensions to XHTML for embedding rich metadata within Web documents

Easy to implement Not HTML 5 compliant

RDFA: BEST BUY

LINKED OPEN DATA 2007

“Linking Open Data cloud diagram, by Richard Cyganiak and Anja Jentzsch. http://lod-

cloud.net/”

“Linking Open Data cloud diagram, by Richard Cyganiak and Anja Jentzsch. http://lod-cloud.net/”

Linked Open Data2010

MICROFORMATS

Semantic markup which seeks to re-use existing HTML/XHTML class attributes to structure data

Easy to implement Limited formats

MICROFORMATS: BON APPÉTIT

MICRODATA

A WHATWG HTML5 specification used to nest semantics within existing content on web pages

Officially supported by Bing, Yahoo, & Google Can imbed other markup languages like

RDFa, microformats, and Dublin Core Not well-known (yet)

MICRODATA:STEVE: THE MUSEUM SOCIAL TAGGING PROJECT

OPEN GRAPH PROTOCOL

Facebook-created markup language that turns any web page into an Open Graph Objects allowing for any page to become a Facebook page

I “Like” you Good for targeted advertising Limited in scope

OGP: MARTHA STEWART

BACK-OF-THE-NAPKIN COMPARISON

Features RDF/OWL

RDFa MF MD OGP

W3C standard

X X X

Extensible X X X

Pre-existing Vocabs

X X

Uses URIs X X

Easy to implement

X X X X

HMTL 5 compliant

X X X

Inferencing

X

STATUS REPORT ON S SEMANTIC WEB

Linked Open Data graph growing

Many countries have developed government sites with rich semantics

Development of Semantic search

More widespread adoption of lighter semantics

WHERE WE MIGHT BE GOING

Pharmaceutical industry identifies trends across clinical studies, and not just within them

News industry better targets content by locale

Department of Defense using it to make better decisions in the field

Utilized in advertising to drive more and more revenue

QUESTIONS?

Barbara McGlameryTaxonomistMartha Stewart Living Omnimedia(212)827-8817bmcglamery@marthastewart.com