What Will it Take to Build the Semantic Technology Industry?

I get asked this question a lot. And I’d like to get your help in answering it please.

As co-chairman of the Semantic Technology Conference, I see lots of customer organizations experimenting and adopting semantic technologies – especially ontology-driven development projects and semantic search tools - and seemingly as many start-ups and new products emerging to address their requirements. It’s an exciting time to be in this space and I’m glad to have a part to play.

But back to the question of “what will it take?” I don’t think anyone has all the answers, though it seems there’s a growing consensus about how semantics will eventually take hold:

1. A Little Semantics Goes a Long Way
I think it was Jim Hendler who first used the expression, and I find myself in stark agreement. Much of the criticism of the semantic web vision focuses on the folly of trying to boil the ocean, yet many of the successful early adopters are getting nice results by taking small incremental steps. There’s a good exchange at Dave Beckett’s blog on this point.

2. Realistic Expectations
I guess this relates to my first point, but I remain concerned about the hype and expectations that are being set around the semantic web, and now the term Web 3.0. I, as much as anyone, would love to see the semantics field explode with growth, but this market is going to be driven by customers, not vendors, and the corporate clients I see are taking a cautious approach. I think they’ll catch on eventually, but let’s not try to push them too far, too fast. 

3. We Don’t Need a Killer App
Personally I think we need to look at semantic capabilities as an increasing component of the web and computing infrastructure, as opposed than trying to identify a killer app that’s going to kickstart a buying frenzy. If a killer app emerges then that’s great, but don’t hold your breath. There’s plenty of value to be gained in the meantime. More than anything, we need to demonstrate speedy, cheap ways to get started with semantics. This will be far more useful in the long run. 

4. We Need to Get Business Mindshare
It’s so obvious that I’m almost embarrassed to say it, but the main point is that we need to improve how we’re currently demonstrating the business value of semantic technology. I see a few key ways we can improve, starting with a greater willingness to talk about the projects already taking place. Secondly, I think we can leverage existing technology trends – especially SOA and mashups – to show how semantic technology can add value to these efforts. Third, and I might risk offending some people with this, but in the short term we should be emphasizing cost savings and reduced time to deployment over and above the extra intelligence and functionality that semantics can provide. Especially for corporate customers. Semantic SOA can save hugely over conventional approaches in data integration and interface projects, and this is where most businesses are really feeling the pain right now. 

OK, so this is a short and probably incomplete list of ideas.  Feel free to chime in here or at the Semantic Technology Conference

This year’s SemTech conference in particular will have numerous discussions around the theme of how to grow the semantic technology industry, including Mills Davis Semantic Wave 2007 tutorial, and the Keynote panel on Building the Semantic Technology Industry: A Conversation with Entrepreneurs and Investors

I hope to see you there and to get your input to the conversation.

PS: Next Tuesday (April 24) is the deadline for early registration discounts on SemTech, as well as group rates at the conference hotel in San Jose.

Comments

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This particular implies that In the past the spot covered by natrual enviroment provides decreased significantly because of deforestation, forest provide an essential purpose inside survival with the atmosphere for the reason that they're residence with regard to untamed life, normal water lose supervision, supply of wood as well as papers, source of fuel, biodiversity for example fresh fruits as well as grow kinds and fun reasons. ecent previous there was a greater worry within the charge associated with deforestation and also plan steps happen to be carried out protect the residual protected area. Man action is amongst the major components which have led to this problem and since trees tend to be alternative assets there is certainly require actions and also increase the unique circumstances. 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Surge in human population: In line with the Malthusian circumstance associated with inhabitants progress, population progress can be mathematical as the name indicated and because the human population dimensions boosts it comes with an increased regarding resources including terrain, consequently the population will certainly crystal clear woodlands as a way to access territory with regard to fiscal reasons. Exploration and search: Exploration and also search have also led to this problem, while certain vitamins such as steel or even gas was discovered within area included in do guy will crystal clear these types of forest to be able to extract these types of valuable sources and as a result woodlands place diminishes as more and more mineral deposits are usually identified then there is should apparent trees. Effect associated with deforestation: Loss in bio-diversity: Forests get come into the lack of bio-diversity, some woods and also grow species are currently endangered and a few happen to be vanished and also this continues to be because of deforestation. As a result everybody missing it's bio-diversity which include wildlife who have dropped their habitat. Flash water damage: Woodlands are essential because they offer watershed operations, because of deforestation there has been an increase in your flow associated with floor water and thus there were improved incidences regarding expensive surging inside dams as well as electric power public works. World-wide weather modifications: Damage through climate modifications are knowledgeable due to unforgiving dynamics in the surroundings, Climatic change has become an issue that continues to be of contemporary concern as well as deforestation has contributed to the problem of worldwide heating, because of this as a result there ought to be improved upon woodland management to supply the particular negative result of global heating up. Bushes may work as water lose where areas protected by natrual enviroment will hold a lot more underground normal water, any time logging comes about of these region the floor might not maintain water and for that reason the location may experience more less wet climates due to deforestation. 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Deforestation is a significant reasons from the garden greenhouse influence, Trees and shrubs remove carbon dioxide through the atmosphere through photosynthesis and when these kinds of sapling lessen then this can create an discrepancy, the actual rot along with the burning regarding trees and shrubs will even lead to a rise in the degree of carbon dioxide inside the environment and consequently Plan procedures: Afforestation as well as reforestation: Federal government possess caused policy actions geared towards planting trees in both areas which were covered by timber and people who were not earlier covered by bushes, afforestation involves the planting involving trees inside place in which woodlands failed to are present even though reforestation consists of sowing bushes wherever jungles are already ruined. An illustration is where considering that 1990 europe provides paid out producers throughout form of awards to enable them to turn his or her producing property straight into forests, simply by 1997 above half a million hectares involving property happen to be afforested along with reforested. Also Inside the Before 2000 to be able to The year 2000 period tiongkok finished reforestation along with afforestation that could reach over One.1million hectares. Which means afforestation and also reforestation insurance plan steps by simply various specialists get resulted right into a lowering of the consequences regarding deforestation. Ban in logging: Bans on working may also be coverage procedures to lessen deforestation, nevertheless acts as a strategy to quit further deforestation yet does not solve the situation involving deforestation as the globe was already facing the issue, among a real bar may be the 1997 the far east exclude towards commercial logging, this kind of ban ended up being raised in over 12 provinces which might be along the yellow-colored pond. Tariff of minimizing this problem: Since timber harvesting is often a significant business activities in lots of nations if a part of which is useful for production of wood and never with regard to nay various other employ, trees and shrubs are usually selected and planted then reduce with regard to wooden generation and timber are usually re-cultavated as well as in a position to grow coming from natural seeding you have to can be in apposition to determine the economic expense of managing the problem. In the event that bushes and also woods are used for wooden manufacturing next right now there should the actual determination of optima turn which is to be determined by the price tag on grape planting, expense of cutting timber, discounting charge as well as the pattern regarding growth of these bushes. The particular stumpage valuation on the actual trees and shrubs will be comparable to revenue obtained from the selling of wood without the presence of cost of crop and transportation to the place of sale made. In this case so that it will be vital that you maximise the particular stumpage value. Inside our situation were determining development of timber certainly not for the purpose of scaling down however in order to protected and gaze after the actual environmentally equilibrium and so the cost of keeping timber is going to be based on the actual operations fees like spraying, pruning and loss, various other charge add the chance tariff of territory tangled up by the timber and lastly the ability fees which the proceeds from cutting the particular trees and shrubs. Nevertheless for community woodlands and we don't must consider the chance tariff of territory organized with the bushes. Connection between your carried out policy procedures: The price associated with reforestation as well as afforestation may be high in most countries, inside Brazilian especially the Amazon online marketplace the particular economic system generates around Two.Three billion dollars Us all us dollars each year from signing and also neo signing pursuits, more those activities provide around 230,500 indirect and direct job. This particular demonstrates the magnitude in the charge that will result from total bar upon regarding As a result these types of guidelines may lead to the decline in employment opportunities plus a decrease in fiscal results. Trees and shrubs as being a natural reference can be used as the objective of financial growth and development in the economy and failing to use these kind of assets may cause not sustainable monetary development. Nevertheless the escalating area of woodland protected as a result of these kinds of guidelines will certainly reduce the effects of deforestation as time passes, the nation will also experience an increase in natural resources available there will likely be a marked improvement inside weather conditions problems in the area. Position regarding industry centered manage policies: Industry management policies require this sort of plans as substantial fiscal fines in anyone observed signing, increased income tax about visiting firms and corporations may also decrease your demand for timber along with shrub products, when the price of timber raises the requirement furthermore diminishes and so you will see a decline inside rate regarding deforestation, one other industry based coverage involves subsidising and also providing grants or loans to producers for you to plant bushes, this may promote woods planting techniques within an economy and thus decrease the difficulty regarding deforestation. Discount fee: The particular discount charge communicates the future charges as well as advantages equal to today's using means, the actual discount fee rely on whether present sources net rewards are simply to get good or bad, since deforestation rewards are good the actual low cost charge must for that reason be described as a good determine. The most effective rates of interest that should be accustomed to discounted to the deforestation issue needs to be the existing market rates of interest, this is because the market interest levels mirror the particular determination of people for the overall design are willing to spend on usage of resource in the future this is as the marketplace monthly interest echo your cultural choice of people throughout the economy. Summary: In the previously mentioned debate obviously deforestation is mainly responsible for side effects around the environment, the elevated financial incentive and need for wooden as well as tree merchandise features contributed to the raised deforestation functions across the world. Deforestation is induced usually by individual action, forest fire, unwanted pests and conditions, wind flow, chemical p bad weather brought on by pollution, city development, the requirement to branch out the particular carry systems, exploration and exploration last but not least population growth. Effects of deforestation for the setting contain decrease of bio-diversity, flash flooding and also world-wide climatic adjustments which can be due to climate change as well as green house result. Coverage procedures to guard forests that have been performed contain afforestation, reforestation along with the bar upon logging. Market place centered plan measures consist of income taxes about working businesses that cuts down on the requirement for wood and also woods items, when the cost of wood raises on account of these tax then the demand diminishes, another marketplace dependent plan consists of subsidising along with supplying awards to be able to maqui berry farmers in order to place trees, this can promote woods planting techniques in the economy and thus slow up the dilemma associated with deforestation. Recommendations: Gallant Ur (1990) Planet's Evaporating Woodlands, Macmillan Writers, Greater london Michael Nited kingdom, Gregory S, and Johan Unces ('07) Hardwood generation logged exotic woodlands South usa, Setting journal  5(Some) 213 for you to 216 Westoby J (1990) Introduction to Forestry, Blackwell web publishers, New York Williams Michael. (2002) Deforesting the Earth, School associated with Chicago, Detroit Wikipedia the free of charge encyclopaedia (2009) deforestation, restored about 11th march, sold at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deforestation Wunder Ersus. (Two thousand) your Economics involving Deforestation, Macmillan Publishers, Manchester Zuckerman Azines (1991) Keeping Ancient Woods, living world click, Chicago

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[Eric Hoffer]

Often when people speak about semantic technologies, they tend to describe something web based, that the typical surfer might unknowingly experience and enjoy – something that requires that the web be populated with semantically compliant information, and navigated by mechanisms that seek and process that compliant information… something that seems years away.

There’s some chicken and egg business going on here: we need web services that are looking for this particular form of metadata in order to justify mass creation of it, and at the same time, it needs to exist in order to justify the building of apps which take advantage of it. One approach is to build semantic layers to enable data integration and conversion, but this seems targeted at near-term fixes and band aid-type solutions to legacy systems and data sets. On the other side of the equation are vendor and consultant efforts to attract enterprises to utilize proprietary tool sets or methodologies. In either case, the focus is on generating savings or revenue.

Hitting the pause button on near-term-focused business models would do a lot to enable people to better focus on how to get from here to there, without having to worry about their own performance, paying the bills, and keeping the lights on. Everyone could then go about finally loading their photo albums, updating their address books, and populating all the metadata we need - but obviously that’s not going to happen either (echoing David Hay’s related comment).

So how do we get from here to there? This may echo some of the sentiments already expressed below/above, but in sum, I think the “way”:
i - lies at the intersection of the many popular Web 2.0-type tagging, sharing, and/or social networking apps that themselves are on fire today;
ii - comes from within activities people are already engaged in;
iii - builds from the bottom up, while at the same time being top down;
iv - is found in baby steps, but in baby steps that yield fruit with each step;
and in doing so, harnesses the natural proclivities of individuals.

In short, this means subtly re-engineering user experience in activities that people engage in (going to conferences, for example), while allowing the semantics to grow from interaction (of experts) in these activities, from the bottom up. In a recent post of mine, I talked about semantic technologies being special not just because they are the building blocks of the future – but specifically because they are building blocks designed to accommodate things we haven’t yet discovered. Using these tools to build mechanisms that allow or facilitate discovery and use of what is discovered – iteratively, for further use and discovery – is how I think we get “there”.

[Paolo Bouquet]

When we discuss about semantic technologies, I think we should distinguish between two different levels:

(1) the first is using semantic technologies for improving what we currently do with other (more standard) technologies - especially with RDBMSs - in corporate, stand-alone applications

(2) the second is building the Semantic Web.

Personally, I'm afraid that the (1) alone will never fly. RDBMS-based environments are so flexible that they can be torn to do nearly anything (IF . and the IF is important - the application is under some kind of centralized control).

So I believe that the way to bootstrap the use of semantic technologies should start from the other direction, namely proving that they can enable the "global" effect that the web was able to ignite.

However, to this end, it fear that the R&D community might have taken a dangerous path, basically trying to re-formulate most of what we knew from knowledge representation and reasoning in AI into the Semantic Web language and technology. I would suggest a different strategy.

Adrian above mentioned the analogy between the bottom-up approach for developing the Web and the Semantic Web approach. I think that there is a fundamental difference between the two stories (which cann explain why the first was so successful and the second is struggling to take off). The Web was built on top of a solid infrastructure (TCP-IP) and exploited this infrastructure to establish a global space of identifiers (URLs), which can be used both for referring to a resource (in a href link) and for retrieving the resource (through http). For the Semantic Web, we completely lack this infrastructure, as referring to an entity like "New York city" is completely different from referring to a document on the Web). In such a situation, Tim Berners-Lee's idea that the Semantic Web would make KR go global simply can't work. My opinion is that we should first enable the "web of entities" (namely getting to work a public and robust infrastructure for managing identity and reference of non digital resources on the web), and only afterwards we should try to build the "web of meanings" on top. In short: Semantic Web = web of entities + web of meanings (in this order). When this is done, then the bog players (customers) will immediatelyperceive the advantages of getting their applications aligned to this huge knowledge space, and will follow.

If anyone is interested, a personal view on how the web of entities might be enabled are presented (in a very preliminary form) in:

http://sunsite.informatik.rwth-aachen.de/Publications/CEUR-WS//Vol-201/33.pdf

[Jack Ring]

Dave,

The Semantic Technology Industry will supply technology to those who build systems that leverage the notions of meaning and understanding.

The STI will grow if it supports the building of such systems and the demonstration of value of such systems.

This claim reflects the Computational Technology Industry typified by IBM, the Seven Dwarfs, DEC, Intel, MIPS, TI and others. The software crowd made the CTI somewhat useful. The Basic programming language doubled the market. Other capbilities made the CTI output useful to 10 fold, then 100 fold then 1000-fold more users.

Semantic Web will not be the breakthrough. The current DBMS's can't handle the load. Full duplex Semantic Network Data Managers must appear.

The Basic dual of OWL will have to appear. Four times at the Delphi Group summit, today, I was asked, "How do you propose to get that knowledge out of people's heads and into 'knowledge bases'?

Semantics is not an IT thing. Tying semantics to SOA, and BPM will not help semantics because too many managers are becoming aware that IT Is the problem, not part of the solution. Semantics will do better as an ALTERNATIVE to IT.

May be helpful to 'reuse' Dee Hock's four objectives for promulgation of chaordic organizations (c.f., Birth of the Chaordic Age), paraphrased for the Semantics context.

Creation of a dozen or more examples of new, successful semantics-based solutions. Ideally, these will span such diverse areas as education, government, social services, commerce, and the environment, to demonstrate that semantic concepts have universal applicability. Develop methods and resources to help both existing and new institutions through the process of reconceiving themselves to a semantic-based behavior.

Development of visual and physical models of semantic-based sysems so that people have something to examine, experiment with, and compare to existing systems. This cannot be done with UML. The models must contain the ethical and spiritual dimensions generally lacking in current models. In addition, computer simulations will need to be created to allow people to quickly see how clarity of purpose and principles allow institutions to self-organize, evolve over decades, and link in new patterns for an enduring constructive society.

Development and dissemination of an impeccable intellectual foundation for semantic-based systems. The intellectual foundation must integrate the economic, scientific, political, historical, technical, social, and philosophical rationale for such semantic-based systems and establish the common language and metaphors necessary for widespread understanding of the concepts.

Creation of a global institution, itself a successful example of a semantics-based system, for the sole purpose of developing, disseminating, and implementing semantics concepts of organization, linking individuals, institutions, and groups of all kinds committed to institutional and societal reconstruction in a vast web of shared learning. It must enable people to pursue new organizational concepts in unique ways, on any scale, at anytime, for their own reasons

[Adrian Walker]

I think that semantic web technology so far is imitating the bottom-up, infrastructure-first approach that was so succesful for the original web.

However, it's possible, for things like "make all the world's data look like one database", that we should be also taking a top down approach -- starting at the author- and user-interface.

The top is a good place to address questions of agility, end-user-authorability by nonprogrammers, understandability, auditability, and explainability.

In fact, Web 2.0, to the extent that it is well defined, occupies some of the top down, ease of authoring space.

At our company, our top down approach is set out in our paper "A Wiki for Business Rules in Open Vocabulary, Executable English" [1]. The paper describes a system called Internet Business Logic that is live, online at www.reengineeringllc.com . The site has a number of examples that you can view, run, and change, using a browser. You can also write and run your own examples.

The general approach is outlined in the abstract of our talk at the first Semantic Technology conference [2]. The idea is to get three kinds of semantics -- data, inference, and English -- to work together seamlessly in one system.

Thanks for comments on this comment.

[1] www.reengineeringllc.com/A_Wiki_for_Business_Rules_in_Open_Vocabulary_Executable_English.pdf

[2] http://www.semantic-conference.com/program/sessions/S2.html

[Ivan Handler]

From my point of view, the business need I see is in what I call "policy oriented software." I am the CIO of a large state agency. Change requests to our systems come in all the time and are not predictable. Politicians do not like to be told that the implementation of a deal they just made will be 6 months to several years.

While there are several components to what I want to do, one is that I would like to be able to attach an ontology to each module that exists in a system so that when a policy maker is considering changes, they could query the existing system to see whether or not it can accommodate the proposed changes. If not, it could grind out a preliminary set of requirements which could be used to estimate the costs and timeframe for changes. While this is not at all simple to accomplish, it is concrete.

From what I have seen, semantic technology is now in the position of being a solution in search of a problem. Killer apps are not what is needed right now as much as concrete applications that demonstrate real benefit. I believe they are coming, but in my opinion, this is one of the major obstacles in the way of semantic technology right now.

[David Hay]

I must confess that in spite of my offering a presentation on the subject, I still feel a bit like Socrates the philosopher on the subject: I am not sure I really understand it. And if I am troubled, I have to assume that the great unwashed masses are really baffled.

What is missing is a definitive example of how a website is different because it is on the semantic web. You say you don't see the "killer app" out there, but absent something as clear as spreadsheet technology (the thing that made PC's viable) or even a web site, it is hard to make our descriptions of the semantic web real.

Google is incredibly impressive at being able to find stuff. Is that what we're talking about? But the Google people don't present at our conference, and I am sure they are most protective of their technology. Will OWL allow us to write a search engine like that? But to find a document does it have to have the right XML tags embedded in it? I certainly don't plan on doing that to the articles on my web site.

Yes, I understand each of the specific points I make in my presentation. And yes, I can successfully represent the ideas in my data model in OWL.

But what does that mean? I have sort of understood parts of the answer to that question, but I don't think I have had the ultimate "ah ha!" that I'm looking for. And I'm sure our prospective markets have not either.

That's my assignment at the Semantic Technology Conference.

Dave

[John Singer]

As long as the semantic web continues to be positioned as a means of "fixing" content on the web it won't go anywhere. The application of Ontologies as a means of data management versus traditional RDBMS technology is what will drive this industry. That being said, what is missing are robust data management tools for ontologies, a business rule language for more expressive constraints (see SBVR) and an agent programming language that is declaritive and expressed in the same manner as the Ontology itself. The business driver is easy - lower cost of developing systems using the emerging new age semantic data servers.

[Ed Addison]

Semantic Technology is not an industry, its a technology. It requires much manual labor, hence massive collaboration is required (Wiki-). Examples of successful applictions will spur more development. On the other hand, if good enough applications can be built without it, it will take a long time. Jury is out.