I received a new Springer-Verlag catalog in the mail a few days ago – I just noticed that there were at least 9 books on Semantic Web technologies.

I am interested in the Semantic Web for many reasons:

• I have been interested in AI for 25 years (I have written a couple of Springer-Verlag AI books, BTW). I think that the Semantic Web is a good application area for AI technologies.
• I am a Java developer – most of the free Semantic Web software tools are written in Java (with few very useful exceptions).
• I have always found that working on bleeding edge technologies to be a lot of fun – and in today’s IT economy, I think that it pays to be a specialist.

For Java developers, a good place to start is the HP’s Java Jena toolkit.