Web 'getting closer to fully harnessing semantic technology'

Category: Internet Trends

December 17th 08, 11:30

Internet experts are getting closer to fully realising the potential offered by semantic technology, it has been suggested.

Speaking to the Yahoo! Search blog, Dr Rudi Studer of the University of Karlsruhe said that while closed environments such as enterprise applications have already made good use of semantics, the web is also approaching this scale of involvement, particularly in the area of search.

"Powerset (acquired by Microsoft this year), for example, is a good indicator of where we're headed and certainly a proof point that we're getting closer," he remarked.

Dr Studer also suggested that greater indexing of semantic web data by search engines will offer "obvious" benefits for end users and will encourage publishers to use semantic web standards when making their data available online.

Untapped commercial opportunities that could be exploited by semantics include combining the social web with semantic technology, mashups and semantic search ads, the expert added.

Website development professionals interested in finding out more about the semantic web should refer to the World Wide Web Consortium's RDF, OWL and SPARQL recommendations, as well as lectures on videolectures.net, Dr Studer said.

According to Guy Westlake of software firm Vignette, the semantic web will play a part in the development of the web content management system market in 2009.

This news story was brought to you by Bluhalo, a leading UK digital agency.

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