Posted June 28th, 2009, in: Cultural Acceleration| Data Portability (DataPortability)| Humanity, Culture, Philosophy, Politics, Ethics Etc| Ideas, Observations, Opinions, Rants Etc| Semantic Web| Social Software and The Social Graph| Technology| The Semantic Web (Giant Global Graph)| Web 2.0
The following is a bunch of predictions. Mark my words. Three areas to pull out your wallet for.
- Personal Web Hosting/Cloud/Sync/Backup Services – I’m not sure what to call this space that I think we’ll be seeing a lot of. I don’t believe that these kinds of services will be bundled with mobile accounts anytime soon, but that’s clearly what will happen. The definition is this: Add-On ISP-like services that make mobile and desktop apps work together more effectively. This would include backup services and services that bridge gaps across the various hardware networks we use.
- Genealogy – The Baby Boomers love this stuff, and actually so do humans in general. Who doesn’t want to know their own family history? And with DNA analysis becoming more and more standardized, I think that Social-Media-Driven Genealogical Information will probably be mashed together with known hereditary data to create really compelling information services for average people. The word “Rich” comes to mind but that’s really in the hands of designers and visionaries. Imagine what’s going to happen in this space. It blows my mind.
- Library Sciences Related Anything – The so-called “Public Library” is probably about to explode into something much more tangled with our daily lives. I believe that tax-funded Public Libraries are increasingly getting closer to being able to easily use cutting edge Information Technology to serve the public. The abolition of hard-copy card catalogs went slowly. But we’re in the age of Moore’s Law. It’s no stretch of the imagination that soon there will be title-to-isbn translators that cross language barriers and so on… But that’s just the beginning. Imagine the Public Library as place that has cached, categorized databases from all sorts of sources, and Librarians as people helping you to mash data together (while you’re still at home in your underwear or on a train heading to work) …This idea is so hard to see for some people. I could go on for pages about the possibilities. And for you asshole cynics, remember: Facts Cannot Be Copyrighted. “(b) In no case does copyright protection for an original work of authorship extend to any idea, procedure, process, system, method of operation, concept, principle, or discovery, regardless of the form in which it is described, explained, illustrated, or embodied in such work.” …Libraries are worth so much to us as people. And when they merge into a global archive of ‘verified’ sources, we’ll really start to see the Web’s potential.
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Posted May 14th, 2009, in: 1| Cultural Acceleration| Data Portability (DataPortability)| New Media| Semantic Web| Social Software and The Social Graph| Technology| The Semantic Web (Giant Global Graph)| Web 2.0
This is a draft version. Suggestions welcome.
Short answer: People.
What the Semantic Web (now officially called any number of other things besides that) needs in order to become mainstream, in my opinion, is people and the connections between them. The phrase “The Social Graph” comes to mind a la Brad Fitzpatrick’s once famous, but now all but forgotten manifesto which even Tim Berners-Lee eventually commented on.
The Semantic Web would catch on if it was seen as even remotely useful by the young people who are most likely going to be building the next big thing on the web.
The beautiful thing about the Web2 era is that highly useful tools can sprout up overnight simply because of the desires of more or less ordinary people with no credentials or affiliation with a company. Everyone knows someone who’s a programmer. The next big social software application just might come from the bedroom of a teenager. There is hardly any barrier to access anymore. This is why Web 2.0 happened. A new tool or service doesn’t need a business plan and a data center to launch and go viral.
The trajectory of innovation throughout the last five years or so, the “Web 2.0″ years, has been around capitalizing on people, the content they create, their interests, and the value added by crowd-sourcing. The benefits in the social media space are clear from both the perspective of normal end-users, as well as giant companies. Mostly, these benefits are about filtering noise and finding relevance on the user-side and on the giant company side, gathering metrics, targeting messages and acquiring free content. The SemWeb standards have a lot to offer the Social Media realm, dare I say, probably even more than CSS with rounded corners does (I hope I’m not offending anyone here).
But the way things are today, for most programmers, implementing SemWeb standards is a lot of extra work with no immediate benefit. Why not just use MySQL or cook up a new XML format?
So why are these standards being completely ignored by the coders on the street? RSS took off. Why not FOAF? I think it’s because there’s no useful directory of URIs for people. There are lots of SEmWeb geeks who have URIs, but the kids on MySpace and FaceBook don’t have URIs or FOAF files. And those kids’ eyeballs and participation are worth real money!
One fine day, back in 2006, Tim Berners-Lee came down from the mountain and gave us a commandment (or at least he logged into his blog and made a suggestion):
“Do you have a URI for yourself? If you are reading this blog and you have the ability to publish stuff on the web, then you can make a FOAF page, and you can give yourself a URI.”
Then, apparently fifteen minutes after the first post was published, Berners-Lee really got at the importance of URIs in a post called Backward and Forward links in RDF just as important:
“One meme of RDF ethos is that the direction one choses for a given property is arbitrary: it doesn’t matter whether one defines “parent” or “child”; “employee” or “employer”. This philosophy (from the Enquire design of 1980) is that one should not favor one way over another. One day, you may be interested in following the link one way, another day, or somene else, the other way.”
For those of you who don’t yet understand the idea of the Semantic Web, here’s the deal. If there’s one web-address that represents each person, place thing or idea, it becomes possible to crawl the Web (documents as well as databases) looking for links to that person place or thing. And if those links contain tags which specify the meaning of the links, the web-at-large begins to look more like a giant database. This is the “Web of Data” (in contrast to the “Web of Documents” we know and love). This is what people call The Semantic Web. So what’s stopping people from being in the “Web of Data” (AKA Semantic Web)? Like Tim Berners-Lee suggested, we need URIs for people. That’s where it all starts. Once there are URIs for people, and there are semantic links (ones that contain tags explaining what they mean) pointing at the those URIs, we can start making tools that use that data.
This is a fairly simple concept. And Berners-Lee makes it sound simple enough. Sure, we’ll all just give ourselves URIs and viala, the Social Graph will go Semantic. That sounds great but there are a few problems with leaving it at that.
- Most ordinary people do not have websites or hosting of their own and instead rely on Social Networking Services’ profile pages for their web presence. This means that most people have no way of easily publishing themselves to the Web of Data.
- For-Profit Social Networking services have a conflict of interest with regard to providing the Web-at-large with useful, granular “Social Graph” data. Instead we see APIs that give approved developers limited access to data. No love for the average joe like me that is not a programmer.
- The Web currently has no trustworthy repository for facts about ordinary people. Trustworthy means not-for-profit at the very least. The closest thing we have is Wikipedia, but Wikipedia does not allow entries on ordinary, non-notable people. (keep in mind that the Wikipedia publishes the facts in its ‘info boxes’ in RDF one of the core Standards of what we have been calling ‘The Semantic Web’)
We need to start thinking of the Web more like we think of a Public Library, but completely decentralized and with infinite shelf-space. I think WikiMedia, the organization behind the Wikipedia is the best bet for a trusted librarian for all the information about normal people.
I think what is really needed right now is a non-profit run directory of people, possibly even modeled after the Wikipedia, especially when it comes to the concurrent DBPedia project, which publishes the contents of Wikipedia facts to the Semantic Web. Really I think because of WikiMedia’s established trust, they would be the ideal organization to do this. Wikipedia could simply have another layer which reveals non-notable results or ‘all results.’
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Posted April 5th, 2009, in: 1| Cultural Acceleration| Data Portability (DataPortability)| Humanity, Culture, Philosophy, Politics, Ethics Etc| Ideas, Observations, Opinions, Rants Etc| Semantic Web| Social Software and The Social Graph| Technology| The Semantic Web (Giant Global Graph)
As a major intaker of information about leading technologies, I am proud to say that at the time of the creation of this blog post, I am ahead of the game as far as declaring a change in the language we use to refer to the next phase of web evolution.
The term “web” has never been stronger. The “internet” goes on as something we mention almost every day. And the technologies that comprise the realm of what we have been calling semantic web, mainly markup standards, aren’t going anywhere.
But semantic web just fell out of favor as a [canditate for a] useful euphemism in our language. The moment this became obvious to me was a few weeks ago when I heard that Tim Berners-Lee spoke at TED and didn’t mention ‘the semantic web.’ A few weeks later I saw the video for myself and felt a certain sadness or abandonment when TBL talked about the geekiest dream ever, one that he created, without using the name I thought we had all agreed on for it, The Semantic Web. Instead, he used a different euphemism for the most awesome library system ever conceived. He called it “Linked Data.”
If you are a Semantic Web apologist like myself you might feel slightly deflated by a sudden change in terminology. I’m sorry. I’m sure TBL is sorry too.
But the reality is that “Semantic Web” is always going to be confused with Natural Language Processing, which is also a field of technology that is growing fast in its own right.
No sustaining buzz has really caught on with “the semantic web,” as a catch phrase, beyond us geeks that are already sold on the idea. Instead, we’ve recently heard more and more announcements (made usually by search companies) that include the word semantic as if the mere use of the word means that the company is doing something right.
The battle we’ve been fighting as SemWeb advocates is largely a battle for widespread awareness. TBL has said himself that the phrase semantic web wasn’t the best choice of words.
I’m sure TBL spent at least an afternoon considering what he might say to the audience at TED which arguably consists some of the most influential people in the world. I’ve concluded that he intentionally abandoned the phrase, in preparation for a brighter future in which the SemWeb technologies are no longer so easily confused with other technologies. We’ve changed our name.
If you feel the re-branding is unfair, consider who has more right to the word semantic, the Natural Language people or the Interchangeable Data Format people?
We lose.
Sorry. We need to move on.
The Semantic Web is now called Linked Data. It’s official. Take a deep breath, change your notes. And let’s move on as Linked Data enthusiasts, not Semantic Web enthusiasts.
I will lead this effort by removing the category of “The Semantic Web” from this site and replacing it with “Linked Data.” I’ll do it later this week. I need some time to say goodbye.
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Posted February 6th, 2009, in: 1| Cultural Acceleration| Humanity, Culture, Philosophy, Politics, Ethics Etc| Ideas, Observations, Opinions, Rants Etc| New Media| Reviews & Thoughts About Products| Social Software and The Social Graph| Technology| Web 2.0
If you haven’t played around with EtherPad, and you have a few friends you can get to screw around with you on this thing, do yourself a favor and try it out.
At first, it’s very simple:
EtherPad is a Collaborative Text-Editing environment. It’s real-time though, so it’s not as much like Google Docs (remember Writely?) as it is like IM. Yes, it’s like Instant Messaging only more instant. Every character typed or removed by anyone working on the text is seen in real-time by everyone else editing the document. The page never has to reload or anything! Ah, the beauty of Javascript.
Be warned though, this means that the people you’re working with can see how slow you type! And as of yet, there’s no spellcheck, so you’re basically letting it all hang out.
I heard about this from the Technometria Podcast, and it’s clear to me that, as they discussed in the show, for students taking notes during a lecture, nothing I’ve ever seen in my life could ever be as valuable as this technology is, even in its youngest form, that is, as long as the students in question have computers and friends.
Before I go any further, I should mention that my techie friends are all telling me about JQuery… I’m not a programmer, so that doesn’t mean anything to me (yet)… Also, EtherPad is only one of several spotlight applications running on a new platform called AppJet, which I guess is a Javascript-based development platform that’s really visual/browser-oriented. Maybe even a sort of WordPress for Ajax?
Well whatever. I’m not a dev so I’m not qualified to criticise that stuff, but the mention of JQuery seems timely given what I’ve been hearing, all-hype though, as far as I’m qualified to say, as a non-programmer. The use of Javascript in general, is not all-hype, my instincts tell me… We better move on because I don’t know shit about Javascript. But I do think it’s the future, if you’re asking my nose.
I would like to see EtherPad with TinyMCE because at the very least, UL’s and OL’s (un-ordered and ordered lists), Bold and Italics, Links Etc, would make the collaboration so much more useful!
Beyond that, I’d love to see an app that can be installed anywhere that allows people to run controlled instances of ET, while controlling certain parameters like the maximum number of characters or lines per document… Etc…
I have a lot of ideas about the possibilities of this kind of real-time text-editing. Big ideas.
Hey AppJet! Wanna talk?
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Posted July 31st, 2008, in: Cultural Acceleration| Data Portability (DataPortability)| Humanity, Culture, Philosophy, Politics, Ethics Etc| Intellectual Property| Marketing/Advertising In The Cloud| New Media| Semantic Web| Social Software and The Social Graph| Technology| The Semantic Web (Giant Global Graph)| The War on Free Culture| Videos| Web 2.0
Kevin Kelly gave this talk at TED in 2007. It’s worth watching.
He touches on a number of things ranging from history of the Internet and Moore’s Law to the future ubiquity of Cloud Computing and Kurzweil’s “Sigularity.“
He covers concepts like the Semantic Web, and the give-and-take between privacy and participation with relatively light language that any lay person should be able to understand. This is an interesting and entertaining little presentation. Thought I’d share.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDYCf4ONh5M]
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Posted June 20th, 2008, in: Cultural Acceleration| Technology
This is really interesting work that they’re doing over at Cycorp… Actually, they’ve been working on this for 20 years or more… Crazy.
[googlevideo=http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7704388615049492068&ei=LHZcSLTnBpvWrgOD2d2VDg&hl=en]
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Posted January 21st, 2008, in: Cultural Acceleration| Intellectual Property| New Media| Technology| Web 2.0
In case you missed it and you probably did if you’re the type of folk that will read this, I wanted to steer you toward the last episode of the PRI show, To The Best Of Our Knowledge.
Their Podcast is broken down by segment and can be found here (itunes store url).
Part one, is about apocalyptic settings in fiction… I really thought the last part was interesting. An author named Jonathan Lethem Scott Westerfeld wrote a novel, apparently for teens, about a scenario in the future where Social Currency via the Web is everything (or something to that effect) – a sort of Social Software Hell. The interview touches on some ideas about privacy and technology and also why Teens may relate so well to dystopian settings. All very interesting to me.
The other segment is about plagiarism and there is various anecdotal fuel for discussion there too.
It’s amusing to me that I would find it strange that both of these topics, Intellectual Property and Privacy, be touched on by a radio program in the context of being completely unrelated. I’m so used to thinking about these two topics as parts of the big can of worms that is the Digital Age we’re just starting to come to grips with.
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Posted November 5th, 2007, in: Cultural Acceleration| Intellectual Property| New Media| Technology| Web 2.0
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Posted November 3rd, 2007, in: Cultural Acceleration| Intellectual Property| New Media| Semantic Web| Technology| Web 2.0
I’ve been thinking about this for a while.
Practically everything we do online is not only not private…
But Also…
Practically everything we do online is potentially permanent.
The stuff that we post to the Web using Standards like HTML can be cached. And the items we upload to a company’s server are, well, on their server, so we really don’t have control over what happens to them.
I imagine a scenario in which a presidental candidate is asked by a member of the press:
“Isn’t it true that when you were 20 years old, you did a strip tease to a Britney Spears song in your bedroom, recorded it with a video camera, and posted it to the Web?”
Next time you’re poking around on the Web, and you find yourself peering into someone’s bedroom, or reading a very personal blog entry written by some young stranger, think to yourself:
How could this effect this individual’s standing in the future world? What information is this individual giving away that he or she might regret later?
BETTER YET,
Ask yourself:
How will our culture be effected by behavior like this? How will our expectations of one another change once all this publicizing of traditionally more intimate behavior makes its mark on us?
“Andrew, didn’t you write, back in 2007, a blog entry about something you were calling ‘The Age of Irreversible Statements’ and in that blog entry, didn’t you talk about a hypothetical strip tease, and link to a real one?”
Yes. And I can’t take it back. Even if I delete this post, it’s not necessarily gone. It’s out of my control.
This isn’t an ‘Orwellian’ vision. It’s not ‘Orwellian’ because this isn’t about top-down surveillence. It’s about what we call ‘Public’ growing in new ways, just as what we call ‘Ourselves’ or ‘Our Community’ is growing in new ways. And it’s not a vision, because it’s already happened. It’s continuing to happen right now.
more soon.
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Posted November 2nd, 2007, in: Cultural Acceleration| Intellectual Property| Technology| Web 2.0
MySpace and Google Join Forces to Launch Open Platform for Social Application Development
RELEASE
I’m hoping that the move toward this common-API approach will put the various companies at ease a little with the idea of not having a monopoly on the users’ time and eyeballs. I’d like to think that we’re headed toward a world in which some of the useful data about end-users, that these services normally keep locked away, will start to become more available to everyone. I wonder why that sounds like such an outrageous idea.
Anyhoo, slightly open is better than totally closed. Halfway open is great compared to what we’ve had. OK. So where’s the MySpace widgets for WordPress. Let me know. I’ll be waiting.
Some companies on-board with OpenSocial:
Engage.com, Friendster, hi5, Hyves, imeem, LinkedIn, Ning, Oracle, orkut, Plaxo, Salesforce.com, Six Apart, Tianji, Viadeo, and XING.
I wonder how English Professors feel about all these things.
“What’s your MySpace? Thanks for the add! [and so on]“
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