May 16th, 2008
Tom Ilube ponders ’social verification’ with FOAF
Writing today in the latest issue of Nodalities Magazine, Garlik CEO Tom Ilube tackles the increasingly fraught subject of Identity Theft before moving past it to consider notions of ’social verification.’
Tom’s company, Garlik, offers a product called DataPatrol that helps UK consumers track information about themselves held by banks, loan companies, etc;
“Would you know if your personal information got into the wrong hands? Or if it was being used incorrectly? There are over four billion places online that could be storing your data - from entries on websites to public records. You’d have to have more than just eyes in the back of your head to keep tabs on that lot. That’s why we created DataPatrol - to watch the digital world for you.”
More esoterically, the same Semantic Web approach to data aggregation and the same locally developed massive RDF triple-store technology is applied to a measure of ‘digital status;’ QDOS.
“We all have a presence in the online world whether we use the internet or not and protecting yourself from identity fraud is just one side of the story. Our digital presence also increasingly opens up new opportunities and influences real world decisions made about us. We now have a means of measuring and therefore managing the way we look online, we call it digital status. QDOS is how we measure it. It’s designed to give you a starting point for managing and taking control of your online status. Be seen how you want to be seen. Welcome to QDOS.
Recent research has shown that more and more Brits are making decisions based on digital status. Already 16% have chosen their new home based on how their prospective neighbours appear online. 1 in 5 (20%) have researched a prospective boss online before accepting a job and 32% have searched online to find out more about trades people and professionals, from plumbers to lawyers, before hiring them to do a job.”
In his article Tom points to the problem of ‘impersonation fraud’ in social networks, arguing that relatively small proportions of impersonation within a social network are far more disruptive - and destructive - than their email equivalent, spam;
“If I use an online dating site, only to find that one in twenty, perhaps even one in ten of the people I try to interact with are not who the claim to be I will walk away from that site. My guess is that a 5-10% level of impersonation fraud will send even the biggest such site into a rapid downward spiral as real users vote with their feet. The penetration levels may vary by type of site (Garlik is currently conducting research to gauge consumer sensitivity to this) but in any case I believe it will be far below the tolerance levels that we have to other types of spam. Once our spam filters are in place we happily use email despite the 80% spam levels. Our confidence in email itself is not significantly undermined. But would you really put your personal details in to a social networking site if you knew in advance that 80% of the other ‘people’ in it were fakesters and fraudsters?”
Tom goes on to introduce the notion of ’social verification,’ and to explore the role that the venerable ‘Friend of a Friend’ (FOAF) file might play in helping everyone to interact online with more confidence. An early example of putting Semantic Web specifications to work, could this be the use case for which FOAF has been waiting?
Tom is speaking at the Semantic Technology Conference in San Jose next week, and will doubtless delve further into his ideas in this area.
Disclosure: I am the editor of Nodalities Magazine.
May 16th, 2008
Barney Pell reports on Powerset’s first week in discussion with the Semantic Web Gang
Powerset CTO Barney Pell joins regular members of the Semantic Web Gang to share some of Powerset’s experiences on the week since the launch of their public beta.
Gang members also discuss Yahoo! SearchMonkey and next week’s Semantic Technology Conference in this hour-long conversation recorded yesterday.
May 15th, 2008
Yahoo! frees the Monkey, and announces prizes for a Developer Challenge
In conversation with Yahoo! Research’s Peter Mika last week, I jokingly suggested that Yahoo! Search’s open developer platform, SearchMonkey, might open its doors to developers this week. Well, they just did, and went a step further by announcing a month-long Developer Challenge and prizes of up to $10,000 for innovative applications.
It’s been just three weeks since Yahoo! Search’s Director of Product Management Amit Kumar invited a select group of developers to try the SearchMonkey Developer Tool, and today they’re opening the doors to all comers.
According to Kumar, Yahoo! Search and Google are ‘effectively comparable’ when it comes to the quality and spread of their search results, forcing both organisations to find new ways in which to differentiate. He stresses the outcomes of user analysis at Yahoo!, which validated a presumption that search engine users are fundamentally focussed upon the completion of tasks. Neither search nor processing the results returned by a search engine are the end goal for users; these are simply necessary steps in working toward the user’s own task, whether that’s finding out what’s on at the local cinema, ordering pizza, or completing coursework for school or university.
Kumar reports that the Yahoo! Search team thought long and hard, pondering,
“What could we expose to users to help them achieve those tasks?”
The answer, it seems, was to expose structured data with which Yahoo! properties and third-party applications could work to deliver a more compelling and helpful user experience through the inclusion of navigational links, actionable contact details, etc.
“All of the things we were noticing [in user behaviour] are about structured data.”
According to Kumar’s blog post today,
“Developers can build two types of applications using SearchMonkey – Enhanced Results and Infobars. Enhanced Results replace the current standard results with a richer display. All the links in the Enhanced Results must point to the site to which the result refers. Infobars are appended below search results and can include metadata about the result, related links or content, or links for user actions (such as adding a movie to a Netflix queue).”
Yahoo!’s stated support for established and emerging specifications for marking up and working with structured data potentially bootstraps mainstream adoption for a number of Semantic Web technologies such as RDF. As Kumar suggested, Yahoo! are effectively providing a previously absent incentive for data owners and service providers to expose structured content about themselves, as their data will now be processed by Yahoo! and available for use by any developer who chooses to use the SearchMonkey tools.
As Search becomes an increasingly important piece of the puzzle in completing a remarkably wide range of tasks, all of the major search engine companies must surely be reimagining the way in which the act of searching - and the delivery of search results - can be enriched and differentiated. Yahoo! is taking a brave step in opening up the engine itself, and it will be interesting to see how developers make use of this opportunity; and how Yahoo!’s web properties innovate in order to mitigate the risk of being disintermediated by all those developers who can now access the same data in order to deliver compelling web properties of their own.
May 15th, 2008
Commercialising the Semantic Web
Following an earlier post on this blog, last month I found myself moderating a panel in the final session of one of the tracks at this year’s World Wide Web Conference in Beijing. As I commented via Twitter at the end of the session,
“Great panel and great room… so a doddle.”
The panel comprised colleague Chris Clarke, Garlik Director and CTO (and Southampton University Professor) Nigel Shadbolt, DERI’s Giovanni Tummarello and David Peterson of BoaB Interactive in Australia. Each brought a different perspective to discussion of commercialising the potential of the Semantic Web, and responded well to questions from a technically knowledgeable audience.
Having expressed concerns about the relative lack of commercial engagement with the Web Conference during April’s Semantic Web Gang just days before this panel took place, I was certainly reassured by much of what I heard.
Giovanni, for one, spoke with conviction about activity at DERI to move their Sindice research project onto a sound commercial footing, and flew from Beijing to California to begin meeting with potential investors. Nigel was also able to shed light on the early success of Garlik in exploiting university research, building a consumer user-base (some 60,000 registered users, of which 10,000 are already paying for additional features), and monetising both in partnership with established organisations such as the major high street banks. Garlik CEO Tom Ilube points to the next stage of Garlik’s journey in an article for May’s Nodalities Magazine, to which I shall doubtless return when it’s published next week (disclosure: I am the editor).
Asked if Garlik’s DataPatrol product would have been ‘possible’ without the Semantic Web, Shadbolt echoed a sentiment that I’ve heard elsewhere, suggesting that it would have taken longer to do and been a much harder programming task;
“unpredictable data is hard to work with, without the Semantic Web.”
During questions, Tim Berners-Lee reiterated his earlier thoughts on the importance of Semantic Web technologies in facilitating ‘unexpected re-use’ of data, leading the panel to discuss several of the ways in which their own work has created unanticipated opportunities to push data in new directions.
W3C Semantic Web Activity Lead Ivan Herman cited a perception that universities are failing to provide sufficient skills to students entering the workforce, and asked if panellists struggle to recruit. He also pointed to SWEO case-studies on the deployment of semantic web technologies in business, and called for more examples.
Everyone on the panel was agreed in stressing the importance of building applications that solve real problems for real users. Neither users nor investors are particularly interested in being pitched with ‘the Semantic Web’ or ‘RDF’ or ‘triples’; they want applications and solutions. The fact that the Semantic Web is at work behind the scenes to make those applications and solutions ‘better’, cheaper, more scalable or whatever is clearly important, but shouldn’t be the opening gambit in conversation. Chris illustrated this point with reference to his presentation on Talis Engage from the session before the panel; a new application built in its entirety on top of a Semantic Web Platform, but intended for purchase by a conservative market (local government agencies) and use by a non-technical audience (the general public; specifically those interested in local clubs, societies and events). Chris stressed the effort that had gone into making this potentially powerful application look and behave in a conservative manner, in order to introduce its capabilities gradually to a market unused to Saas, semantic technologies and Open World opportunities.
From my (doubtless biased) perspective, we got a good discussion going between panellists and the audience, and it would be interesting to repeat the experience at a more business-oriented event such as next week’s Semantic Technology or Linked Data Planet in June. The obvious omission from the panel (we did ask!) was representation from a big organisation; one of the search engines, Oracle, etc. I’d make sure to rectify that omission next time.
My thanks to colleague Nadeem Shabir for his comprehensive note-taking in our shared IRC channel; it’s never easy to moderate and take notes, so Nad’s scribing was invaluable in preparing this post.
May 14th, 2008
Semantics add value to new travel site as UpTake emerges from private beta
Palo Alto-based travel meta-search site UpTake (formerly Kango) entered a new phase this morning, emerging from a private beta programme that began in December to give a clear indication of how they’ve been spending the $4million secured from Shasta Ventures last year. Read the rest of this entry »
May 14th, 2008
A new take on ‘Web 3.0′ ?
Writing in today’s Financial Times, Digital Business supplement editor Peter Whitehead offers a different interpretation on Web 3.0 to that which readers of this blog might be used…
“Web 2.0 is a world in which anyone can have a go at generating content; Web 3.0 is where professionals take the lead in shaping that content”
(my emphasis)
“So the leap from Web 1.0, over the messy world of Web 2.0, into the “quality-assured” world of Web 3.0 is beginning now at www.ft.com/digitalbusiness”
Not a mention of the Semantic Web, which appears increasingly closely linked to the fuzzy ‘3.0′ moniker, and a hint of professional elitism in the notion that ‘professionals’ have the answers in steering us past the ‘mess’ that amateurs made with 2.0.
Hmm…
May 13th, 2008
TopQuadrant welcomes Jena lead architect as Chief Product Architect
Established North American Semantic Web company TopQuadrant today announced that Jeremy Carroll is joining the company as Chief Product Architect.
Whilst at HP Labs, Carroll was lead architect on the open source Jena toolkit that lies behind much of today’s commercial and non-commercial work on the Semantic Web. TopQuadrant’s press release asserts that;
“Jena is currently the most used Java toolkit for building semantic applications and is the leading Java toolkit referenced in academic papers and conferences.”
TopQuadrant CEO Irene Polikoff remarked,
“Jeremy’s unique skill set and vision for the future of semantic application development will be a tremendous asset to TopQuadrant. We believe that the collaboration between Jeremy and Holger [Knublauch, TopQuadrant’s Vice President of Product Development] will help to push enterprise-class semantic application development into the mainstream.”
Echoing a growing recognition from Web inventor Sir Tim Berners-Lee and others, Carroll commented;
“Semantic Web standards are now at a stage that, with the right tool support, companies can use them to develop mission critical applications. I’m looking forward to working with Holger and everyone at TopQuadrant. I believe that the combination of Holger’s skills in user interfaces and mine in semantic infrastructure, will make a world-class team.”
Unlike higher profile consumer-facing examples of Semantic Web commercialisation such as Powerset or Radar Networks, TopQuadrant is one of a number of companies including OpenLink, Talis (my employer) and others that are betting on a more measured growth based upon servicing the emerging needs of enterprise customers.
May 12th, 2008
Powerset shows semantic search solution
Beating the rush of press releases likely to flood inboxes during next week’s Semantic Technology Conference, Powerset today announced the public availability of a service that adds a whole new dimension to searching for information from Wikipedia.
Whilst much of the functionality unveiled today has been visible to those granted access to the company’s Powerlabs for some time, the Powerset team has clearly been busy optimising code and ensuring that the various components work together much better. Read the rest of this entry »
May 8th, 2008
Peter Mika offers bananas at Yahoo! Research
Yahoo! are certainly being a lot more open than competitors such as Google and Microsoft when it comes to talking about their use of semantic technologies. They’ve been active for several years in recruiting stalwarts of the Semantic Web community such as Dave Beckett, and there is a long tradition of the company’s employees actively contributing to the research side of the Semantic Web world.
More recently, at least part of that sometimes-esoteric research has begun to make the transition toward Yahoo!’s consumer-facing properties. FireEagle and, most recently, SearchMonkey are obvious examples of this transition. SearchMonkey, for example, has real potential to compellingly demonstrate the case for the Semantic Web and is likely to drive a scramble toward structured markup within the SEO sector.
It’s hard to believe that Microsoft and Google are not also actively engaged in this area, although their reticence in speaking about it creates a perfect opportunity for Yahoo! to make the most of the attention… for now.
SearchMonkey came out of hiding late last month, when Yahoo! CTO Ari Balogh introduced it to attendees at the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco. There’s a Developer event in Sunnyvale next week, and Yahoo! looks likely to be pretty visible at the Semantic Technology Conference in San Jose, 18-22 May.
It was in the context of the Semantic Technology Conference that I found myself in conversation with Peter Mika of Yahoo! Research earlier today. We talked about the potential for SearchMonkey before considering some of the issues posed by moving Semantic Web specifications such as RDF out of the relatively well behaved academic sphere and onto the open Web where honesty is not everyone’s priority. Peter is speaking at Semantic Technology, a few days after Yahoo!’s own SearchMonkey Developer event. I look forward to seeing how much more Yahoo! shares on those occasions. Peter did suggest that public access to SearchMonkey will be ’sooner than [we] think.’ Next week, maybe?
As Peter enjoins listeners at the end of our conversation, ‘Follow the Monkey!’ It will be interesting to see where it leads. I will also be intrigued to see whether Google and Microsoft quietly join the followers… or are found hiding behind a tree waiting for us when we get where we’re going.
April 29th, 2008
Sir Tim Berners-Lee addresses WWW2008 in Beijing
Speaking from the stage in China’s Great Hall of the People last Thursday evening, World Wide Web inventor and Director of the World Wide Web Consortium Sir Tim Berners-Lee shared some of his hopes for the Web with his audience of WWW2008 delegates, impeccably polite and ever-helpful conference volunteers and a collection of local dignitaries. Read the rest of this entry »
At Talis, Paul Miller is active in raising awareness of new trends and possibilities arising from wider adoption of the Semantic Web. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
Recent Entries
- Tom Ilube ponders ’social verification’ with FOAF
- Barney Pell reports on Powerset’s first week in discussion with the Semantic Web Gang
- Yahoo! frees the Monkey, and announces prizes for a Developer Challenge
- Commercialising the Semantic Web
- Semantics add value to new travel site as UpTake emerges from private beta
Most Popular Posts
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- Peter Mika offers bananas at Yahoo! Research
- Sir Tim Berners-Lee addresses WWW2008 in Beijing
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