APOLOGIES TO READERS AND SUBSCRIBERS
It’s been some time since we’ve taken the opportunity to add another snippet of commentary to the OxfordSEO blog and we want to offer our apologies to all our readers and subscribers if you were wondering if we had packed it in or whether you’d ever hear another blurb on Semantic Search developments from us again.
This was down to a couple of factors beyond our control.
Number One Reason: The Semantic Web movement has taken several rather unpredictable turns in the past 6 months which have in some ways made the original premise and basis of this blog redundant. Primarily Google’s adoption of RDF and micro format protocols in their Rich Snippets development platform which has set a common template for meta data semantic enhancements. But Tim Berner Lee’s Open Data (or Linked Data) initiative has encompassed and overtaken the Semantic Web as the primary objective for integrating government data in the UK. This goes well beyond the predictions that have been made on this blog regarding structured data and its effectiveness in providing better data architecture. ”By 2020, the semantic web envisioned by Tim Berners-Lee and his allies will have been achieved to a significant degree and have clearly made a difference to average internet users.” according to Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project.
So the Semantic web has arrived in the public sector even though it’s enterprise applications and private sector relevance is still meeting with stiff scepticism and overtly unfathoming disbelief. We will be attempting in the blogs that follow to underline some of the new definitions of Linked Data, Open Enterprise Data and the Open Data Movement that has shifted the goal posts on Semantic Search.
Our main blog contributor has been involved in senior executive meetings with leading Digital Agencies from London to Manchester (including Mindshare, FastUK, RedWeb and Amaze)who on a ground level understood the importance of Semantic Search for prioritising relevant data and optimising websites; however, when it came to actually applying a commercial model to the development of enhancement service products, fell well short in imagining the significance of impending changes. The old business models of killer applications, new coding languages or a Search Engine product quickly became stumbling blocks for otherwise astute business minds to get a handle on how Semantic was going to change the web and what it meant in terms of offering better digital services.
Much time has been devoted to persuasion and presentation when the fact remains that only the actual change is ever going to convince the commercial world of its importance. Being a pioneer often means being the bloke at the end of the trail with an arrow sticking out of his back. In the case of the Semantic web and Linked Data, it means turning to the government funded public sector and academia that are less wedded to ROI models as they are to improving the playing field. We expect one of the more innovative and adventurous agencies will shortly let their developers and project managers out of the closet and exhort the virtues of making data more accessible, better structured and linked to their clients. But until a digital account manager can show his customer a pertinent URI ranking higher than a URL on Google, getting them to cover the cost of enhancement is going to be a hard one.
Which brings us to Number Two Reason for the delays in this blog: the Recession. Expenditures have been way down as the country tightened its belt and down sized. The University of Oxford placed a hold on all third party IT contracts in the Autumn of last year and many Oxford based publishers and NGO’s found themselves tottering on bottom lines rather than exploring new information architectures.
But Number Three Reason had the biggest impact on halting our progress and that was down to our main contributor succumbing to a health issue that caused a short term incapacity. He had survived a near fatal automobile accident in Manchester in 2007 as a passenger in a digital agency (PHP Media), CEO’s sportscar which had left him with a shattered femur and 18 metal pins holding his hip together. This had held things together literally for two years until the wear and tear of his socket and joint
caused the hip to collapse. After several months of debilitating pain, he was able to undergo a complete hip replacement at the Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre in Oxford and has now made a full recovery.
We trust that his return to regular contributions will bring us all up to date with news and information on Semantic web and Open Data developments. The concept of open data is fast gaining acceptance and is all set to cross a critical mass. It has assumed the shape of a movement and has given rise to an open-data ecosystem that consists of open data publishers, software developers, data analysis tools, researchers and end-users. The open data movement certainly facilitates the availability of a wide variety of data on your fingertips.
“
SUBSCRIBE HERE