Web 3.0 meshup style – hold the fries please

This is a quick follow up to my previous posting about Web 3.0 meshups. I just wanted to clarify a few things as it seems I did not get my point across very effectively.

I did not want to resurrect a debate on the perceived usefulness or lack thereof of the Semantic Web. My point was to say that this was a new suite of technologies that can be used to deliver new user experiences and new user interfaces. That is a good thing. If you completely understand it all or not is beside the point. I use many databases but don’t know anything about b-trees or complex indexing algorithms. I can give more examples but that is just being redundant.

Semantic Web is being used by some very BIG companies. Google is using FOAF in its OpenSocial API. Yahoo has just launched microsearch which indexes microformats, RDFa and RDF — microformats are all about semantic markup. Semantic Web doesn’t have to mean AI. Reuters (the largest news agency in the world) has recently launched Open Calais which adds semantic tags to English text.

So three huge giants are using Semantic Web tech to do interesting things. Those were just three examples off the top of my head.

I am not wandering in the wilderness seeing things. At least I don’t think I am… :)