The future is smart machines (and soup)

Last week I read an interview with Tim Berners-Lee about the future of the internet, the so-called 'semantic web'. Not as catchy a name as 'Web 2.0' but potentially even more powerful. Reading the interview reminded me that while the concept of the semantic web has been around a while, and has been proclaimed the Next Big Thing by net gurus the world over, explaining the concept and why it could revolutionise our lives is difficult. Eyes glaze over as soon as things like "data-meshing" are mentioned, and even Sir Berners-Lee's explanation didn't quite hit the mark for me. So here's my own attempt at a Plain English explanation of this woolly and unfortunately named concept, hopefully in a way that even my mum would understand. Make of it what you will.

Let's start at the beginning, with Web 1.0: producers created content that was published on websites for consumers to find and consume.

In Web 2.0, the lines betweeen consumer and producer are blurred. Consumer-producers can now upload their own content, and consume the content of other consumer-producers, through blogs & sites like YouTube or MySpace. By exchanging this home-made stew of information with each other, online social networks are created.

Web 2.0 is also about doing more stuff through your web browser, things that you used to do on paper or on software that you had to install on your computer. BackPack replaces your personal datebook or Outlook calendar, Flickr replaces your photo albums, for example. You can label your photos and events with descriptive words or 'tags' that make it easy for you to find them. And of course, you can share this content with your friends.

Now on to the tricky part...

The semantic web (Web 3.0?) is about making computers behave (or 'think') more like humans. The easiest way to understand what this means is to use a cooking analogy. Think of each website where you put your content as a big cookpot. You might throw a carrot into one pot and tag it 'carrot', and into another you might put some spaghetti and tag it 'pasta'. Computers are fine with this kind of input.

But what computers can't do yet is understand that the thing you called 'carrot' is a root vegetable, is full of Vitamin A - and that you are making minestrone soup. It also doesn't know that you have another pot simmering, and that there's pasta in there. Or that you need to make a sauce for it. This kind of thinking requires context, and an ability to see the big picture - that is, to know what's in each pot, and to understand that you're making dinner. That's all that data-meshing is; it's about applying meaning to information from different sources. This is what the semantic web is all about; I call it the "web of meaning" or the "contextual web". It means being able to ask your computer everything from "When did I last have Sally over?" to "Can I afford a new laptop this month?".

In a nutshell:

• Web 1.0  is like buying a can of Campbell's Soup
• Web 2.0 is like making homemade soup and inviting your soup-loving friends over
• The semantic web is like having a dinner party, knowing that Tom is allergic to gluten, Sally is away til next Thursday and Bob is vegetarian.

(I know it's a vast over-simplification of things, but I hope my mum is reading and can now understand why I salivate whenever someone mentions data-meshing.)

We are already starting to see the first hints of the semantic web in the mainstream: the photo tagging feature on Facebook is a great example. You upload a photo, tag the photo with your friend's name, and Facebook automatically notifies that person that there's a new picture of them in your photo album. It's a lightweight vision of the future, where the context adds value.

And each time we tag or make a link, we are teaching the machine. And we do this collectively 100 billion times a day.

30 years ago, sci-fi films depicted robots with artificial intelligence so advanced that they responded the way humans do. Today, we're starting to understand that the smart machines won't look like robots, and that the artificial intelligence won't be hard-wired into a self-contained unit. The Internet is the smart machine, and it's learning fast.

For more mind-blowing reading on the Internet as our collective intelligence and memory, have a read through Kevin Kelly's predictions of the future of the web - made just 2 years ago, and already starting to come to fruition.

Comments

[Cristián Frenkel]

Thanks Miko for visit my blog! I'll subscribe to your RSS

[contexart]

Very interesting, finally I start to understandig what is Semantic Web...
Thnk You!

[Gillian Easson]

I came across this term just this morning, realised I was going to have to find out more about it... then stumbled across your definition – this is great Miko, many thanks – a very interesting look at the future in a really easy, understandable format - I bet you make a mean minestrone soup too!

[rosie walford]

hey miko- your email is bouncing and bouncing like the best kind of castle. please contact me with a phone number.

[Daneel Ariantho]

And the singularity will come soon after ... if "semantic web" is the new Producer/consumer.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_singularity

[MaX]

i'll take some of this !
excellent !

[Greg Boutin]

Miko I really like your analogy with the campbell soup and the dinner party. I think you're closing up on some of the differences between those acronyms. Another one I heard is that web 1.0 stands for the 90s, web 2.0 for 2000-2010, and web 3.0 for 2010-2020. Simplistic but perhaps close to the truth too!
Anyway, at the end of the day, it's a pretty futile debate. What matters is how it explains what's coming. To that end, I really like your graphs. I also think that the blurring between consumer and producer is going to increase even further as semweb technologies are deployed. Interesting times.