Embed Doc
Copy Link
Readcast
Collections

CommentGo Back

Minding the Planet

The Meaning and Future of the Semantic Web

Nova Spivack CEO, Radar NetworksNovember 6, 2006http://www.mindingtheplanet.net nova@radarnetworks.com

Notes

•

Master Copy:http://novaspivack.typepad.com/nova_spivacks_weblog/2006/11/minding_the_pla.html

•

Last Update: Tuesday, November 7, 2006, 10:17AM PST

•

License -- This article is distributed under theCreative Commons Deed.If you would like todistribute a version of this article, please link back to http://www.mindingtheplanet.net fromyour version, thanks.

•

Printable version --Click here to download the printable PDF version of this article

•

Illustrated Version --See the version by the Lifeboat Foundation

Prelude

Many years ago, in the late 1980s, while I was still a college student, I visited my lategrandfather, Peter F. Drucker, at his home in Claremont, California. He lived near thecampus of Claremont College where he was a professor emeritus. On that particular day,I handed him a manuscript of a book I was trying to write, entitled, "Minding the Planet"about how the Internet would enable the evolution of higher forms of collectiveintelligence.My grandfather read my manuscript and later that afternoon we sat together on theoutside back porch and he said to me, "One thing is certain: Someday, you will write thisbook." We both knew that the manuscript I had handed him was not that book, a fact thatwas later verified when I tried to get it published. I gave up for a while and focused oncollege, where I was studying philosophy with a focus on artificial intelligence. And Isoon I started working in the fields of artificial intelligence and supercomputing atcompanies like Kurzweil, Thinking Machines, and Individual.A few years later, I co-founded one of the early Web companies, EarthWeb, whereamong other things we built many of the first large commercial Websites and later helpedto pioneer Java by creating several large knowledge-sharing communities for softwaredevelopers. Along the way I continued to think about collective intelligence. EarthWeband the first wave of the Web came and went. But this interest and vision continued togrow. In 2000 I started researching the necessary technologies to begin building a moreintelligent Web. And eventually that led me to start my present company,RadarNetworks, where we are now focused on enabling the next-generation of collectiveintelligence on the Web, using the new technologies of the Semantic Web.But ever since that day on the porch with my grandfather, I remembered what he said:"Someday, you will write this book." I've tried many times since then to write it. But itnever came out the way I had hoped. So I tried again. Eventually I let go of the book form and created this weblog instead. And as many of my readers know, I've continued to

3write here about my observations and evolving understanding of this idea over the years.This article is my latest installment, and I think it's the first one that meets my ownstandards for what I really wanted to communicate. And so I dedicate this article to mygrandfather, who inspired me to keep writing this, and who gave me his prediction that Iwould one day complete it.This is an article about a new generation of technology that is sometimes called theSemantic Web, and which could also be called the Intelligent Web, or the global mind.But what is the Semantic Web, and why does it matter, and how does it enable collectiveintelligence? And where is this all headed? And what is the long-term far future going tobe like? Is the global mind just science-fiction? Will a world that has a global mind begood place to live in, or will it be some kind of technological nightmare?I've often joked that it is ironic that a term that contains the word "semantic" has such anambiguous meaning for most people. Most people just have no idea what this means, theyhave no context for it, it is not connected to their experience and knowledge. This is aproblem that people who are deeply immersed in the trenches of the Semantic Web havenot been able to solve adequately -- they have not found the words to communicate whatthey can clearly see, what they are working on, and why it matters for everyone. In thisarticle I have tried, and hopefully succeeded, in providing a detailed introduction andcontext for the Semantic Web for non-technical people. But even technical peopleworking in the field may find something of interest here as I piece together the fragmentsinto a Big Picture and a vision for what might be called "Semantic Web 2.0."I hope the reader will bear with me as I bounce around across different scales of technology and time, and from the extremes of core technology to wild speculation inorder to tell this story. If you are looking for the cold hard science of it all, this articlewill provide an understanding but will not satisfy your need for seeing the actual code;there are other places where you can find that level of detail and rigor. But if you want tounderstand what it all really means and what the opportunity and future looks like – thismay be what you are looking for.I should also note that all of this is my personal view of what I’ve been working on, andwhat it really means to me. It is not necessarily the official view of the mainstreamacademic Semantic Web community -- although there are certainly many places wherewe all agree. But I'm sure that some readers will certainly disagree or raise objections tosome of my assertions, and certainly to my many far-flung speculations about the future.I welcome those different perspectives; we're all trying to make sense of this and themore of us who do that together, the more we can collectively start to really understand it.So please feel free to write your own vision or response, and please let me know so I canlink to it!So with this Prelude in mind, let’s get started...