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What happened to the semantic web? Well... it happened. 1) We got schema data for Job Postings that companies like Google reads to build a job search engine.

What happened to the semantic web? Well... it happened. 1) We got schema data for Job Postings that companies like Google reads to build a job search engine. 2) We got schema for recipes. https://schema.org/Recipe https://schema.org/Recipe 3) We got the Open Graph schema for showing headlines/preview images in social networks. http://ogp.me/ http://ogp.me/ 4) We got schema for reviews: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/data-types/review https://developers.google.com/search/docs/data-types/review 5) We got schema for videos: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/data-types/video https://developers.google.com/search/docs/data-types/video 6) We got schema for product listings.

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Grumbledour 8y ago
I agree. While it didn't turn out to be the solution to all our Problems and not every webpage is chock full of semantic markup that anyone can scrape, there are still a lot of bits and pieces that stuck around. I always felt that one problem of more widespread adaption by users was missing software. There were and still are all these great microdata pieces out there, but can my browser save an address, add an event to my calender etc.? If these things were easily possible to even an inexperienced user, I think we would see much more semantic markup. But in the meantime, search engines and social networks sure have an easier time scraping information then before we talked about the semantic web.
evrydayhustling 8y ago
These are definitely interesting things that semantic web influenced, but they're definitely not what semantic web aspired to be. The differences are a good laundry list of things that make standardized data models viable in the wild: They are organized around use cases, not data origins. They are opt-in, rather relying on distribution via some discovery standard. They are only used by subsets of the industry they serve, and that's ok. They aren't integrated with regulation in ways that force their use. (list continues)
- nine_k 8y ago
  I would rather see features on the web appear because users want them and expect them to work, and not because some regulation mandates their use.
ghaff 8y ago
Like a lot of things--though not everything--with the modern Internet (e.g. RageRank vs. hierarchical directories), some echo of the Semantic Web ended up happening mostly organically. The Semantic Web was a rather academic concept--think a library classification system for the Web. Tim Berners-Lee, among others, promoted it for a long time.
acdha 8y ago
The semantic web happened but the Semantic Web didn’t. Schema.org is used because it a) solves a problem which exists in reality and b) works well with very modest requirements. All of the crazy bikeshedding about labyrinthine XML standards, triples, etc. or debating what a URL truly means has very little to show for the immense time investment. The main lesson I take away is that you absolutely need to start with real consumers and producers, and never get in the state where a long period of time goes by where a spec is unused. Most of the semweb specs spent ages with conflicting examples, no working tooling, etc. which was especially hazardous given the massive complexity and nuance being built up in theory before anyone actively used it.
- bshanks 8y ago
  "Good judgment comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgment." Maybe humanity had to first try "all of the crazy bikeshedding about labyrinthine XML standards, triples, etc. or debating what a URL truly means" in order to gain enough understanding about this domain to later create things like schema.org.
noobermin 8y ago
That is literally one of the points of the article.

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Grumbledour 8y ago

I agree. While it didn't turn out to be the solution to all our Problems and not every webpage is chock full of semantic markup that anyone can scrape, there are still a lot of bits and pieces that stuck around. I always felt that one problem of more widespread adaption by users was missing software. There were and still are all these great microdata pieces out there, but can my browser save an address, add an event to my calender etc.? If these things were easily possible to even an inexperienced user, I think we would see much more semantic markup. But in the meantime, search engines and social networks sure have an easier time scraping information then before we talked about the semantic web.

evrydayhustling 8y ago

These are definitely interesting things that semantic web influenced, but they're definitely not what semantic web aspired to be. The differences are a good laundry list of things that make standardized data models viable in the wild: They are organized around use cases, not data origins. They are opt-in, rather relying on distribution via some discovery standard. They are only used by subsets of the industry they serve, and that's ok. They aren't integrated with regulation in ways that force their use. (list continues)

nine_k 8y ago
I would rather see features on the web appear because users want them and expect them to work, and not because some regulation mandates their use.

ghaff 8y ago

Like a lot of things--though not everything--with the modern Internet (e.g. RageRank vs. hierarchical directories), some echo of the Semantic Web ended up happening mostly organically. The Semantic Web was a rather academic concept--think a library classification system for the Web. Tim Berners-Lee, among others, promoted it for a long time.

acdha 8y ago

The semantic web happened but the Semantic Web didn’t. Schema.org is used because it a) solves a problem which exists in reality and b) works well with very modest requirements. All of the crazy bikeshedding about labyrinthine XML standards, triples, etc. or debating what a URL truly means has very little to show for the immense time investment. The main lesson I take away is that you absolutely need to start with real consumers and producers, and never get in the state where a long period of time goes by where a spec is unused. Most of the semweb specs spent ages with conflicting examples, no working tooling, etc. which was especially hazardous given the massive complexity and nuance being built up in theory before anyone actively used it.

bshanks 8y ago
"Good judgment comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgment." Maybe humanity had to first try "all of the crazy bikeshedding about labyrinthine XML standards, triples, etc. or debating what a URL truly means" in order to gain enough understanding about this domain to later create things like schema.org.

noobermin 8y ago

That is literally one of the points of the article.