The World Wide Web Consortium

Mauro Nunez
North American Business Manager
World Wide Web Consortium

24 May 2007

These slides: http://www.w3.org/2007/Talks/101-mn-HTMLmail.html

PDF: http://www.w3.org/2007/Talks/101-mn-HTMLmail.pdf

Outline

• Web's Success and the Role of Standards
• World Wide Web Consortium
• Web for Everyone
• Web of Data and Services
• Questions

Web's Success

and the

Role of Standards

"Over 1 Billion Served"

"Over 100 Million Serving"

What Led to the Web's Success?

• Simple architecture - HTML, URI, HTTP
• Networked - value grows with data, services, users
• Extensible - from Web of documents to ...
• Tolerant - even w/ imperfect mark-up, data, links, software
• Universal - independent of systems and people
• Free / cheap - browsers, information, services
• Simple / powerful / fun for users - text, graphics, links
• Open standards ...

Why are Open Standards Important?

• Broad industry agreement (if done right)
• Interoperability ... cross-application, -organization, -data
• Avoids vendor lock-in ... for providers and users
• Open access = no black boxes
• Mandated ... by customers, government
• Open, royalty-free standards = good business sense

World Wide Web Consortium

Founded by Tim Berners-Lee in 1994, W3C is:

• Providing the Vision to Lead
• Engineering the Open Standards that Make the Web Work ...

... expanding ...

• From a Web of Documents ...
• Toward One Web ...
  • ... of Data and Services
  • ... on Everything
  • ... for Everyone
• ... the Semantic Web

A Unique Standards Organization

• 20 Hosts/Offices: MIT | ERCIM | Keio | | Australia | Benelux | China | Finland | Germany and Austria | Greece | China | Hungary | India | Israel | Italy | Korea | Morocco | Southern Africa | Spain | Sweden | United Kingdom and Ireland |

• 445 Members (history map, largest)
• 800 Technologists developing standards in 60 Groups
• 65 Member-neutral Technical Staff
• Accountable to the Global Public

(Membership / Benefits / "At a Glance" brochure)

Why Participate in W3C?

• Leadership
  • Introduce ideas through submissions, workshops, Incubator Groups
  • Influence standards through Working Group participation, review, implementation

• Early insight into market trends
  • Access world's foremost Web technologists from Member & Team
  • Plan for emerging technologies & markets through Member-confidential access

• Promoting image as innovator
  • Participate in international media activities, press releases, testimonials (e.g., MWI)
  • Display logo on W3C site (300K visits/day) and W3C logo on your site

(Membership / Benefits / How to join W3C / "At a Glance" brochure)

Engineering the Web's Interoperable Foundation

• Close to 100 Web Standards to date (list/svg-by-yr/translations/~60 groups svg)
  • Including: HTML, XML, CSS, SOAP, SVG, Voice XML, RDF and more

(Description of technologies in the stack)

The Real Question

• Q: Which of these are relevant to you?

• A: All of them… 

Web for Everyone

Web for Everyone

Universal Access ...

• Global participation (Offices, translations, etc.)
• Internationalization Activity (overview talk)
• Web Accessibility Initiative
• New Web security work
• Future objective: "Trust"

Web of Data and Services

Web of Data & Services

Interoperable information and programs ...

• XML: Binary, Processing Model
• Web of Services: Performance, Addressing, SemWeb Services, Policy (overview slides)
• Web of Data = Semantic Web: Deployment, Query, Rules, Health Care/Life Sciences, Content Labeling, Geospatial, Multimedia Semantics

Semantic Web: Why?

• Tasks often require combining data across the Internet, e.g.:
  • Integrating data across the enterprise
  • Hotel, transport, meeting, personal info come from different sites
  • Mining data from biochemical, genetic, pharmaceutical, patient databases
  • Cross-referencing disparate digital libraries
• Humans understand how to combine this information ...
  • Not always easy (different vocabularies, languages, formats)
• Machines aren't smart enough :-)

Semantic Web: Linked Data on the Web

Machine-processable, global Web standards: Assigning unambiguous names (URI) Expressing and linking data, including metadata (RDF) Capturing ontologies (OWL) Query, rules, transformations, deployment, application spaces (in progress) logic, proofs, trust Semantic Web = Web 3.0? (Markoff, NYT, Nov 2006)

(W3C's Semantic Web Activity / Semantic Web overview slides / example)

Questions?

Summary

• Evolution toward one Web ...
  • of Data and Services, on Everything, for Everyone
• Strong business case for
  • Understanding emerging standards
  • Implementing standards as they appear ready

  ... Participating in standards orgs supports both

• A good resource ...http://www.w3.org/