RDF

RDF seems like as good a place to start as any. RDF is explained in terms of subjects, objects and predicates. Predicates link objects to subjects where the subject is the thing, the object is the value and the predicate is the property. However objects can also be subjects so to me it seems easier to think of RDF consisting of two items, objects and predicates where predicates link objects to each other. Forget this notion of subjects altogether.

An RDF graph then is the structure created when one tries to visualize a set of connected objects. There are a number of different ways to represent this graph, one is to draw it, another it to use what are called tuples (just specially formatted pieces of text) and finally one can use XML. RDF/XML is the standard way of representing an RDF graph in XML.

We that's all I'm going to say for now. On the W3C website there are a series of 6 articles describing RDF. For anyone interested in RDF but without much knowledge already I recommend you read at least section 1 and 2 of the Primer.

Of course you could just google this but the six documents in the series are:
Primer
Concepts
Syntax
Semantics
Vocabulary
Test Cases

The wikipedia entry is also worth a read although it makes a lot more sense after the Primer.

Introductions aside, let's move right along

Ok, some reading first.

W3C Semantic Web Activity is a good place to start to gain some insight into what the semantic web is. It provides the RDF (Resource Description Language), OWL (Web Online Ontology Language) and SPARQL (RDF Query Language) specifications and has some interesting links in it's Publications section, including a recent interview with Sir Tim Berners-Lee about the Semantic Web (although I found the sound quality made it quite difficult to listen to).

So looks like there's already a lot to read, I wonder how much of this website is semantically described?

Let's Start at the Start

What is the Semantic Web and where is all this talk of Web 3.0 going to take us? In short, I haven't a clue...yet...

Hopefully over the next few months I will begin to understand the meaning of the semantic web. Both what does it mean and equally how does it mean and obviously how much will this new meaning mean :)

The purpose of this blog is purely selfish, I hope to keep track of my study and a blog provides a pretty easy mechanism for this. If anyone chooses to follow along, read, learn or contribute then that's just an added (much appreciated) bonus.