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Introduction

The Semantic Web is an extension of the World Wide Web through standards by the W3C. The term was coined by Tim Berners-Lee for a web of data:

"I have a dream for the Web become capable of analyzing all the data on the Web – the content, links, and transactions between people and computers. A Semantic Web, which makes this possible, has yet to emerge, but when it does, the day-to-day mechanisms of trade, bureaucracy and our daily lives will be handled by machines talking to machines. The 'intelligent agents' people have touted for ages will finally materialize." - Tim Berners-Lee

History of Web

  • Web 1.0 (Web of Documents): The great invention of the web is the hyperlink; clicking the link gets you to the next document in the chain.

  • Web 2.0 (Social Web): This web represents social stuff but does not interoperate because data aren't linked e.g. updating facebook profile doesn't affect your linkedin.

  • Web 3.0 (Web of Data): Semantic Web is not a separate web but an extension of the current one that not only presents data but also understand it. Here, it is all about connecting the data at lower levels not just documents. The idea is to make an intelligent worldwide database which not only stores information but also understand what it is so as to retrieve it in a useful way!

Semantic Web

What is Semantic?

Here, Semantic doesn't refer that computers are going to understand the meaning of anything, but that the logical pieces of meaning can be mechanically manipulated by a machine to useful ends. It can be implemented with the help of well-suited knowledge representation aka Ontologies. In the same way that Web 1.0 abstracted away from the network and physical layers, the Semantic Web abstracts away the document and application layers involved in the exchange of information. So, surfing the web will become much easier as data would present itself in the most optimal pattern.

Semantic Web consists of the following architecture --

  • Data Model: Resource Description Framework (RDF) is a flexible and abstract data modeling language which has more than one representation. It enables representing information about resources in the form of a graph. Hence, the Semantic Web is sometimes called the Giant Global Graph.

  • Query Language: SPARQL Protocol and RDF Query Language (SPARQL) is the query language of the Semantic Web. It is specifically designed to query data across various systems.

  • Schema and Ontology Languages: Web Ontology Language (OWL)  is a family of knowledge representation languages for authoring ontologies i.e. shared conceptualization. They enable you to define concepts composably so that these concepts can be reused as much and as often as possible. It is based on description logic and so brings reasoning power to the semantic web.

Implementation

The term semantic technologies represent a diverse family of technologies that have been in existence for a long time and seek to help derive meaning from information. Some of the examples include -- Natural-language processing, Auto-categorization, Sentiment Analysis, Summarization, Question Answering, Data Mining, Classification & Semantic Search. Semantic implementation of the world wide web enables a broader scope for more resourceful surfing or browsing as the web would assist you with Improved information retrieval thereby reducing information overload and increasing the refinement and usability of the web!

Check out this Ted-Talk by Tim Berners-Lee on the web of data