Community Project

SemWeb2Go

Aldo Bucchi

1. Please provide a brief description of your proposed project.

Develop a service oriented website that allows users to edit, publish, host and announce new RDF documents, in popular vocabularies, easily.

basically, FOAF-O-Matic-ish apps + PURL + The friendliest user interfaces imaginable.

2. Why did you select this particular project?

Personally I have had a hard time dealing with "small" details like choosing a URI for myself, hosting my documents, etc. I know the semantic web should be decentralized in nature... but there is a clear need for a little ( optional ) centralization during this bootstrapping stage.

3. Why do you think this project will have a wide impact?

John is reading about the semantic web and comes to a paragraph that states something among the lines of: "every resource will someday have a URI, even humans".

Wouldn't it be nice to have the latter followed by an invitation?? "Use the following wizard to create your own URI and become part of the semantic web in five minutes!"

He doesn't even have to leave the page and voilá!... Mom ( boss ), I'm on the semantic web!

4. Can your project be easily integrated with other wide-spread systems? If so, which and how?

Yes. But it kind of works the other way around... let's find wide-spread systems/vocabularies and plug them into the [[[SemWeb2Go]]] services architecture

5. Why is it that this project should be done right now, i.e. why should people prioritize this ahead of other projects?

People should get their hands dirty! That's the best way to let them see that the semantic web is happening. It would also provide some soft means to spread best practices and regulate evident issues that are arising by the lack of centralization ( eg. http://foo.com/me VS http://foo.com/me#i )

And finally, as Tom Gruber stated ( probably quoting someone else )... "let's put something on the shelf!"

6. What can you contribute to the project?

Not ready to commit as I'm still missing the big picture. Let's start by designing the service as a community ( SemWeb2GoDesignIssues ). Focusing on FOAF, DOAP and other directly useful projects and trying to KISS as much as possible.

Integration with current introductory material would be beneficial ( inline wizards spread all over semantic web documentation ). I would encourage the Simile team to come up with some nice Ajax Widgets for the task.

7. What contribution would you need from others?

For now, contribute to the design ( SemWeb2GoDesignIssues ) Later on,

Hosting
Development

8. What standardization should the Semantic Web community at large undertake to support the project?

Just for FOAF/personal profile massification we need a clear standardization of personal URIs. Other projects will have their requirements as well.

9. How does your project encourage others not currently involved with Semantic Web technologies to get involved (by providing data or make a coding commitment)?

We will be exploiting a simple human trait: curiosity.

10. What would be the main benefit of using Semantic Web technologies to achieve the goals of the project, compared to other technologies?

Self evident.

Commitments

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