Blogging Towards a Semantic Web
When I created my first website, I didn’t have a solid understanding of the elements behind it. All I knew was that it looked good when viewed in Internet Explorer 4 on an 800 by 600 screen resolution. I used JavaScripts in hyperlinks, marquees, images and whatever element I could style. With regard to the layout, I used tables and frames to position my header, navigation and content. Back then, it was purely presentational. Proficiency in image editors such as Photoshop and CorelDraw as well as in WYSIWYG (pronounced wee-zee-wig) HTML editors like Dreamweaver was sought-after (until now). As long as one can generate Web sites out of images, it was considered enough. Many ignored the underlying code. Moreover, some resorted to Flash-based Web sites, and they were so l33t. Then I realized what my brother told me a few months ago, Anyone can create Web sites.
Six years later, here I am going back to my teenage hobby. So much has changed on the Web since. I hear Web standards, Web content accessibility, microformats and semantics. I didn’t even realize that we’re already using XHTML and CSS.
The old school was fun, but moving on to this new one seems to be far more promising. It strengthens the fundamental methodologies. It’s the way the Web should be. Nowadays, a budding Web designer needs to go back to the drawing board. It’s not about how the pages look anymore. More importantly, it’s about what they mean. And this is where semantics come in.
Semantic Web
Wikipedia defines semantic Web as:
an evolving extension of the World Wide Web in which web content can be expressed not only in natural language, but also in a form that can be read and used by software agents, thus permitting them to find, share and integrate information more easily.
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At its core, the semantic web comprises a philosophy, a set of design principles, collaborative working groups, and a variety of enabling technologies.
Purpose
Wikipedia also has a nice analogy of the Semantic Web:
Humans are capable of using the Web to carry out tasks such as finding the Finnish word for “car”, to reserve a library book, or to search for the cheapest DVD and buy it. However, a computer cannot accomplish the same tasks without human direction because web pages are designed to be read by people, not machines. The semantic web is a vision of information that is understandable by computers, so that they can perform more of the tedious works involved in finding, sharing and combining information on the web.
For example, a computer might be instructed to list the prices of flat screen HDTVs larger than 40 inches with 1080p resolution at shops in the nearest town that are open until 8pm on Tuesday evenings. Today, this task requires search engines that are individually tailored to every website being searched. The semantic web provides a common standard (RDF) for websites to publish the relevant information in a more readily machine-processable and integratable form.
Structured Blogging
Having read Chris Pearson’s post on The Definitive Guide to Semantic Web Markup for Blogs, I realized that the blogging platform I’m using isn’t necessarily semantic from an SEO perspective. If there is hierarchy among heading tags, then why put that much importance on sidebar headings (h2)? Do they deserve to be equally important as post titles? What about the sub-headings in posts? Being able to make decisions based on these questions is one way of blogging towards a Semantic Web.
It’s too early to teach about Web semantics since I myself, am still being introduced to this. There is however, a growing number of blogs and blogging platforms written with semantics in mind. How do I know if my blog is using some kind of semantics, you might ask. Here’s a small list that you may be able to find in your markup:
- DOCTYPE
- <head profile=”http://gmpg.org/xfn/11″>
- Metadata (keywords, description)
- <meta http-equiv=”Content-Type” content=”text/html; charset=UTF-8″>
- Microformats such as hCard, vCard, XOXO, XFN, etc.
- <rel=”nofollow”> or <rel=”external”>
Structured blogging combines microformats with some of the principles of the Semantic Web. From the StructuredBlogging Web site:
Structured Blogging is all about giving bloggers the tools to create and syndicate structured information, such as reviews and events.
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Each post type will look different from others, which provides variety to your blog. But the best part is that your structured blog posts stand a much better chance of being found and read, because search engines and aggregators will pick up the content easier.
To illustrate structured blogging, imagine putting labels on your music files- title, artist, year, genre, composer, track number, etc. In the same way, when you blog about a movie review, you’d also be adding the movie title, year, length, director, writer, and many others to your post. StructuredBlogging provides plug-ins for WordPress and Movable Type to make labeling easier. I provided a screenshot taken from HTML Mastery: Semantics, Standards, and Styling. This one is for WordPress.
As you’ve seen, the Semantic Web gives us a different perspective of the Web. It’s different in a sense that we define our content. Indeed, anyone can create Web sites. But not everyone does it in a meaningful way. Remember, it isn’t just about how your pages look anymore. It’s also about what they mean. As Paul Haine, author of HTML Mastery: Semantics, Standards, and Styling would say in his chapter summary:
Whatever the situation, including accurate metadata may be an extra overhead on the author, but ultimately everyone benefits from it, and the more people get on board, the more useful it will be in the future.
June 28th, 2007 at 5:51
As always you make a valid point. Gone are the days of web design for pure aesthetic purposes. I remember creating websites for bands I liked or things I was interested in. I merely created what I thought looked good. (WYSIWYG). Today’s website designer has to be much more focused on all aspects of design - aesthetics and now functionality and SEO. Search engine optimization has become the catch phrase of this internet generation and has overwhelmed all else.
Although I do think we’ve moved forward… part of me will always miss the days of design for design sake.
Thanks for your article. It inspired me to do one of my own on how the web world has changed.
Cheers!
Natalie
June 28th, 2007 at 17:28
I agree, Natalie. Today’s Web designer has sort of become a front-end Web developer. I am satisfied with what the Web designer has become. XHTML and CSS has once again come alive because the underlying code wasn’t automatically generated anymore. Nowadays, the code underneath the design is given similar treatment.
I believe that the Semantic Web is the Web’s future. SEO will be much more improved by then. Google might significantly change its algorithm as well. The Semantic Web doesn’t just care about content. More importantly, it cares about what those contents mean.
You’re welcome, Natalie.
And because you mentioned SEO, I too, am inspired to write an article about meaningful link building.
June 30th, 2007 at 15:50
Welcome to the web 2.0!
June 30th, 2007 at 23:36
Hello Yan,
Hehe. I consider the Semantic Web as Web 3.0, although one of the characteristics of Web 2.0 is enhanced organization and categorization of content.
July 2nd, 2007 at 20:48
How do you define “meaning” in the area of the Semantic Web?
Going away from simple visual annotations and into some markup adding some basic information about the contents is a start. Still, the Semantic Web, to be called, might need to provide much deeper information that can be understood by different agents on what the actual parts of the document are for and how they can be used (by humans or other machines).
Regards,
Andrés
July 2nd, 2007 at 22:17
Hi Andres,
Wow! Your input is amazing. Thanks.
Maybe the Web isn’t mature enough to go into the Semantic Web’s path. Besides, it’s still in its early stages of the draft. However, it’s worth noting that Tim Berners-Lee’s dream of the Web becoming a huge database with intelligent agents is a promising path.
July 3rd, 2007 at 16:38
To blog is to prepare our self to improve our skill in writing. Our audience is spread all over the world. It is our job to serve them well.
July 4th, 2007 at 5:43
Hello suray,
Thanks for you input as well!
I agree with you. However, blogging relies on the World Wide Web in order to work. Therefore, the Web doesn’t just require writing skills. It requires optimization as well. What I mean is that in the Semantic Web and in the context of blogging under it, serving our audience well doesn’t only mean good writing skills and good content. More importantly, our audience must be able to find the most relevant content based on the keywords they used. The Semantic Web gives us the path to that- a huge database with intelligent agents.
Once again, I appreciate your comments.
July 4th, 2007 at 6:21
Blogging and semantic web? I think there can be very exciting movements in the near future. Still, I reckon companies and other organizations need to promote more open discussions about what semantics is and then I think people all around the world will start demanding and implementing better ways of automating semantic annotation and “semantic reading” (really understanding the content)
I think we are going in the direction of getting a Semantic Web, but not in the most straightforward way. In fact, we are probably going there in a little bit more erratic way than what many think, the way real evolution works (well, perhaps not soo erratically).
The reason is that so many people are talking about semantics without defining what that means for them (’semantics’ of all words).
It seems to me like the old discussion that took place in Computer Science in the area of Artificial Intelligence and what intelligence really is. Is a machine intelligent because a person can be fooled into thinking the machine might be a person? Or is the machine intelligent because it can reach some form of awareness? And how are we to identify that awareness? Many people in AI devoted lots of years trying to make “machines that fool people” in some tiny bit of the world. Most of those attempts became failures.
Still, people could get many benefits from AI, only not those they had expected.
We needed to understand what really intelligence is (have you checked out Jeff Hawkins’ book “On Intelligence”?).
Likewise, I think by discussing too little about what the “Semantics” in Semantic Web means we may disperse efforts more than necessary.
This is how I see it (perhaps very wrongly, but here it goes): Web sites and agents visiting sites need to learn to communicate with each other by adapting their contents to requests and responses from the others all the time with as little human intervention as possible.
Meaning, Wittgenstein said, is above all use. A site needs to present what its intention is (the contents plus the relationship of those contents with the world and with the intentions of the site owner) in such a way that intelligent agents can make better use of it all the time. The huge thing is that this can hardly be done with one format, one unique language. OWL, RDF and the like are just little tools and they are still schemes
of representing relationship, not understanding itself.
To do this some universal repository of changing meanings might be useful (some form of Wikisemantics). Where do we define atomic meanings of some universality?
Still, that is not enough. We need to develop better technologies for combining natural language processing with ontological repositories.
Users and machines need to go to and from the universal Wikisemantics, modify it and refer to it as well to other, specific urls where the site managers/owners definy
what their contents mean.
I think an agent “understands” a site when it can read from the site and or references of the site somewhere else (in the universal Wikisemantics or elsewhere)
what actions are expected from it for every part of the site content.
A site should be able to adapt its content to maximize the response it is expecting in a way that should be as automatic as possible.
We at Crossminder are working on some of this: natural language technology combined with Semantics.
One issue is security. The research on how to define security or trust levels for definitions is only starting. How can agents redefine the way they trust visited sites?
How can this be done with minimal human user intervention?
June 18th, 2008 at 5:49
You make very great points in this post. Thank you for the article. Blogging is all about communication, but there are many aspects towards creating a website. There is the design, the social, the SEO, and even monetization aspects that all need attention.
November 14th, 2008 at 5:55
And this is just the beggining of new programs that will come out and give some benefits for some blogs.
January 6th, 2009 at 7:33
I really would like to see what would be the future of Internet and how if in less than 10 years, it advance in an incredible way, what can we expect in 5 or less years?
May 25th, 2009 at 22:04
I didnt understand the first part from the post, somebody could explain me please? I found it very usefull and I would like to understand everything clear…Even without the first part, Nice post
June 3rd, 2009 at 9:43
Thanks for sharing your insights about this matter. Please keep it up.
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June 10th, 2009 at 13:22
It was a nice experience to read out from here, awesome post.
June 10th, 2009 at 13:23
I hope you will keep up the nice work in future as well.
June 10th, 2009 at 13:24
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June 30th, 2009 at 8:18
Waou
August 9th, 2009 at 1:26
This is a really interesting story. Keep it up, my colleagues would love this.
September 10th, 2009 at 8:05
Yap that kaspersky can sometimes be anoying..