Clay Shirky on the Semantic Web

Clay Shirky has written an outstanding piece on the Semantic Web, or rather on why the Semantic Web will never work as outlined in the grand vision of the W3C.

I've never believed in the Semantic Web vision and have actively avoided using Semantic Web technologies like RDF. So, it's kind of funny that Syncato is often mentioned as an enabler of the Sematic Web. Clay's article points out why systems like Syncato can be an enabler for the Semantic Web after all. In his final paragraph he describes exactly the philosophy I've been taking toward Syncato development. He says:

Much of the proposed value of the Semantic Web is coming, but it is not coming because of the Semantic Web. The amount of meta-data we generate is increasing dramatically, and it is being exposed for consumption by machines as well as, or instead of, people. But it is being designed a bit at a time, out of self-interest and without regard for global ontology. It is also being adopted piecemeal, and it will bring with it with all the incompatibilities and complexities that implies. There are significant disadvantages to this process relative to the shining vision of the Semantic Web, but the big advantage of this bottom-up design and adoption is that it is actually working now.

This has absolutely been my approach, bottom up, simple and focused on my immediate needs. I could care less about global ontologies or any other global considerations. My goal is to build a powerful system for personal use, it just so happens that if you do that right you might also end up with a system that is valuable to others as well.

Posted by Kimbro Staken