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I agree with you; The semantic web has a real use case in defining a consistent way of organizing knowledge in the many disparate APIs that developers work with

by mcrider 12y ago

I agree with you; The semantic web has a real use case in defining a consistent way of organizing knowledge in the many disparate APIs that developers work with. I think as we build and consume APIs more and more, designing them in an ad-hoc manner will become more of a chore. I recently wrote an article touching this subject and how standardized APIs will be a boon to integrating web content in non-standard interfaces, but truth be told i'm secretly a 'semanticist' and have always been excited about the possibilities SW can produce: https://medium.com/@mcriddy/semantic-web-design-92ef35f66c9f https://medium.com/@mcriddy/semantic-web-design-92ef35f66c9f

notastartup 12y ago
> The semantic web has a real use case in defining a consistent way of organizing knowledge in the many disparate APIs that developers work with. I think as we build and consume APIs more and more, designing them in an ad-hoc manner will become more of a chore. I think this is a very small use case and there's not enough critical mass behind it. The main reason being that even if you were able to aggregate all the different API together to build something new and bold, it's such a one off idea that is specific to a developer that it really wouldn't be of a much use investing huge amounts of time and money towards building a consolidated API that would serve multiple masters. The rise of AI and machine learning really puts into doubt the economic feasibility of spending money and time on a service that focuses purely on aggregating disparate islands of data unless the payoff existed in that particular market. You don't see a major API provider that provides data to everything, instead you see small enclaves of niche businesses that focus and specialize in their specific consolidation efforts and get paid for it. All in all, I think the semantic web will become more of a private endeavor, at least for proprietary commercial goals. As AI gains more ground, the need for such a central API or the need to unify all the different data together will slowly die off.

by mcrider 12y ago

notastartup 12y ago

> The semantic web has a real use case in defining a consistent way of organizing knowledge in the many disparate APIs that developers work with. I think as we build and consume APIs more and more, designing them in an ad-hoc manner will become more of a chore. I think this is a very small use case and there's not enough critical mass behind it. The main reason being that even if you were able to aggregate all the different API together to build something new and bold, it's such a one off idea that is specific to a developer that it really wouldn't be of a much use investing huge amounts of time and money towards building a consolidated API that would serve multiple masters. The rise of AI and machine learning really puts into doubt the economic feasibility of spending money and time on a service that focuses purely on aggregating disparate islands of data unless the payoff existed in that particular market. You don't see a major API provider that provides data to everything, instead you see small enclaves of niche businesses that focus and specialize in their specific consolidation efforts and get paid for it. All in all, I think the semantic web will become more of a private endeavor, at least for proprietary commercial goals. As AI gains more ground, the need for such a central API or the need to unify all the different data together will slowly die off.