The Semantic Web Goes Mainstream

The recent MarkLogic User Conference was a watershed event for the publishers in attendance, many of whom are just beginning to strategize about the application of semantic technology to their content. After years of hearing “the Semantic Web is coming,” the message this time was that it’s no longer about “what” or “why,” but “how” publishers will leverage this technology. It has been 10 years since Tim Berners-Lee, Jim Hendler, and Ora Lassila announced the creation of the Semantic Web, so many of us were very excited to hear Jim Hendler’s update on current developments. Some key themes of his presentation were already covered in this article from August, 2010 in New Scientist: Google, Twitter, and Facebook Build the Semantic Web. With his trademark slogan, “A little semantics goes a long way,” Hendler added some further context, and described how these companies and others have tapped into social and commercial drivers to promote relatively simple approaches to solving the problem of getting content tagged, and thus increasing the ability for computers to understand the meaning of text across vast amounts of Web content.