tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7100397.post4841992873825169315..comments2012-01-13T08:55:11.761-07:00Mark Watson, author and consultanthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05514730816583918651noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7100397.post-46520958755141890382012-01-13T08:55:11.761-07:002012-01-13T08:55:11.761-07:00Hello SeeSharpWriter, having set authorities for semantic data is difficult because there won&#39;t be a single trusted authority. Can a powerful semantic search be built? I woud say yes, driven by improvements in artificial intelligence and Internet infrastructure (as the energy and financial costs of computation are reduced, more things are possible and affordable). The most useful semantic application I have built: I don&#39;t comment on details of customer projects but I can answer this question because I have never built what I would call a complete semantic application. Rather, I use bits of the technology for organizing data in graph databases, write tools to automatically collect useful data (from Facebook graph, Freebase, DBPedia), and I do a lot of work in text analytics which I consider a requirement for advances in the semantic web (unless we want to mark up information manually, which does not scale).Mark Watson, author and consultanthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05514730816583918651noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7100397.post-15893421065273550242012-01-13T06:53:37.361-07:002012-01-13T06:53:37.361-07:00I guess there would be an authority service for semantic search, similar to how Google is an authority for text search and bans maliciously published data. <br /><br />But can such powerful semantic search be really built? Wouldn&#39;t have Google built it so far?<br /><br />Mark, what is the most useful semantic application you have ever built?SeeSharpWriterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02098977942838434483noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7100397.post-27432609071672450162012-01-12T06:54:10.887-07:002012-01-12T06:54:10.887-07:00Hello SeeSharpWriter, thanks for your comments - the last issue you raised (providence) is likely the toughest problem to solve: how to avoid using maliciously published incorrect information.Mark Watson, author and consultanthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05514730816583918651noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7100397.post-81607378266020981572012-01-12T06:45:24.047-07:002012-01-12T06:45:24.047-07:00I must say that I don&#39;t believe in Semantic Web anymore for these reasons:<br /><br />- Unless the application can conclude implicit facts by reasoning and that provides value to the end user, there is no need to make an application semantic in first place. Simply put, without reasoning, semantics is just an expensive overhead.<br /><br />- Reasoners need to be fast, responsive, reliable, correct and easy-to-use for common people. So far I have not seen such reasoner.<br /><br />- It is difficult to explain to people the benefit they would get of introducing semantics. Honestly, can you convince a client to pay you extra in exchange for semantically charged app?<br /><br />- People are concerned about privacy. They DON&#39;T want their data to be merged from different sources in order to get &quot;personalization&quot; (and targeted marketing :S). Instead, they would like to ask questions or input commands as free text and get meaningful answers returned. (Something like Siri does on iPhone, but even that is based on statistics and NLP, not Semantic web)<br /><br />- People are malicious sometimes. What if someone starts putting crap on the web in order to confuse your data engine?<br /><br />I wish this whole Semantic thing works some day, though, but I really doubt it.SeeSharpWriterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02098977942838434483noreply@blogger.com