I attended a lecture tonight given by Sir Tim Berners-Lee on the Future of the Web. The lecture was hosted by the Oxford Internet Institute.
This post is based on my notes. While I only included a portion of what was covered in the lecture, I may have missed the mark on a few things. If you attended the lecture or have something to add, please leave a comment.
Berners-Lee covered a fair amount of territory in the 90 minutes he was given to talk about the Web's future which largely included the Semantic Web. To put it simply, the future of the Web is a Web of data. He thoroughly discussed the use of the URI in this instance and RDF.
He talked about the social and technical rules of the Internet and the World Wide Web and how social rules often need re-engineering. For example, Email's technical rules were built into the header of messages and processed by SMTP. Whereas these microscopic rules performed wonderfully in academic environments, commercial email is a total failure. Have you checked you inbox lately?
Berners-Lee discussed his vision for the Semantic Web as one where data was reusable, shareable, and one where data was simply more meaningful for groups and their goals. He used examples that included Genomics and Proteomics and how these two disciplines may need to merge their data in order to better understand one another. He suggested that connected data may lead to discoveries that cure illnesses like Schizophrenia.
More simplified examples included requesting the engineers in the audience to first back up their laptops, and then export their spreadsheets in RDF format and make them available on the Web. While the data may not mean anything today or tomorrow, it might be meaningful to someone five years from now.
Berners-Lee added that since data isn't as interesting as Web pages, the Semantic Web has a long way to go. This was said in reference to the social and commercial success of the World Wide Web.
A web cast of the lecture should be made be available at http://webcast.oii.ox.ac.uk/
Update: There are a few people that have written about the lecture:
Ian Forrester in the Cubic Garden Blog as well as Laura Peterson in the New Statesman
The presentation is on the Web, too. Thanks Ian.
