ecampaigning open space: Semantic web

Bunch of notes - will try to tidy up later...


RDF - resource description framework
Microformats -
my brother - example of formatting
foaf= friend fo a friend

Drupal 7 will have this installed by default. BBC has all the info already available in this format.

Ontology which lists all the relationships - not standardised. But can be reconcilled between different parties.

The opportunity is for all the info about projects to be put into one place. LIke here
www.wolframalpha.com/
or
http://www.aiddata.org/home/index

OpenCalais.com - can tag a document with a lot of semantic context based on what's in the doc.

Example

A number of websites talk about a same project - describing it with title, description, people, budget.
if we agreed the list of tags then we can share this project data accross websites.
Also, update the info about the project in one place and it spreads everywhere.

Possible application - link the data so you can find the information such as water expert close to you in a place in Africa.

Privacy statement

Privacy commons - we all sign up to the same set of rules. Same principle as Creative Commons.

You confirm identity in one place - open ID principle. You can confirm which of your data you are happy to be shared via semantic web.
Or you can have a token which allows you to login anywehere else - which means access to your data is time-limited.

Data portability pledge - organisation state that they want to release their data under.
It's about making supporters life easier in finding data. It's not focussed on benefitting NGOs.

Semantic web tries to make sense of data sets that you can get in search at the moment. So in summary it's a glorified search. Search with "intelligence".

Semantic web?

First time I heard a bit more about this is in the Radio 4 interview with Tim Bernard Lee. Couldn't get my head round it. But then Tom from Stop Climate Chaos explained how it all works (it did take him 30 mins + an email to get there).

And now - I am completely hooked.

This is how I understand it - semantic web adds another dimension to information that is on the web - it links up with applications you have on your computer as well as with any other type of relevant content (photos, audio, video, maps, etc..) which is available of the web. So for example at the moment when you right-click on a link, you can 'Save a link As' or a 'Photo As' or 'copy link', 'copy link location'. What semantic web enables you to do on a right-click is to find youtube video with same tags, if the link you are clicking on is a contact - it will add it to your calendar.

The best way to understand it is to install the Operator add-on for Firefox. In IE8 and allegedly soon within Firefox there will be native support, i.e. even if the user doesn't know what they're doing, the browser will present them with options based on having read the microformats in a page.

Once the Add-on is installed, you need to go to pages that are coded using these microformats (at the moment most of the website does not have them, but in few years time this will be the standard).
Pages to look at:
http://upcoming.yahoo.com/event/904360/

or contacts, tagspaces and bookmarks:
http://www.polity.co.uk/contacts.asp
or the geo location:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/thomchandler/2531059257/in/set-721576053258
82225/

Thanks Tom!