SocialDevCamp East, so much fun

I attended the SocialDevCamp East today. It was a lot of fun and very rewarding. The event was kind of like a conference, but unlike a typical research conference it didn't have any specific agenda or planned breakout sessions. I have attended many planned research conferences in the past, but this bar camp (bec it has free beer after 4pm) was definitely a unique experience. I would recommend future bar camps to anyone who is interested in technology.

My lessons learned from this event are as follows. First, the start-up culture on the East Coast is very different from which of the West Coast. On the East Coast, it's difficult to find either VCs or angel investors to fund start-ups that don't a sustainable revenue stream. Second, there is a large pool of talents on the East Coast (in the DC/MD/VA area) that is not currently being utilized to create social web and social media innovations. Third, it's possible to get non-AI developers to be excited about the Semantic Web.

By chance, I hosted a session on the Social Web + the Semantic Web. My original intent was to get people to talk about Semantic Web technologies and businesses that are crucial to the success of Social Web applications. But, it turned out that the audiences were very interested to explore the possibility of using Semantic Web technologies as differentiators to help them to stand out in the fast-change social media world. If you missed the discussion, you can find our discussion topics in this Twitter stream. Also you can find materials covered in my Social Web + Semantic Web slides.

I'm convinced that Twitter is useful (sometimes). While I was attending the conference, I sent my wife the Twitter stream of the SocialDevCamp (#SocialDevCamp). She was able to follow my session and see photos of me in an almost real-time experience.

Exploring FOAF Semantics in Del.icio.us

FOAF is an ontology for publishing and discovering social network information on the Web. Though many people have published their FOAF profiles on the Web, but that number is still quite small -- in comparison to the number of published MySpace profiles.

While tools like FOAF-a-matic has made easy for the average web users to generate FOAF profiles, but they still require some manual effort to get the profiles published (e.g., a user must complete the form and upload the machine generated RDF document onto a web server). I suspect these overheads are discourage factors that had prevented many users to publish their FOAF profiles.

If FOAF profiles are valuable to the understanding of social network on the Web, we should look for new ways to discover FOAF semantics in the existing web applications, and not depend on the manual publishing of FOAF profiles by the users.

Web 2.0: Rebooting the DotCom Boom

My memory of the last DotCom boom is fading. But, I think a new DotCom boom is about to begin. The new boom, I think, will evolve around the idea of Web 2.0 and perhaps some mix of the Semantic Web.

Getting a Taste of del.icio.us

After reading Dan Connolly's blog, saying that he has outsourced bookmarking to del.iciou.us, I thought I will give this service another try. I have used the service before, but didn't really get into it.

Spent few minutes reading the HELP page, I discover few new interesting features:

• Tag Bundles: I can bundle a set of related tags. For example, I created a SemanticWeb tag bundle that includes tags such as "ontology, rdf, owl, owls, rdf, rss" etc.


• Private Saving: one reason I didn't like del.icio.us in the past because I don't really want to share all my bookmarks with the public. With this new "private saving" feature, I can keep my private bookmarks private.


• Firefox extension: I installed a Firefox extension that allows to quickly save and tag web pages. It works great!

Among those features, I especially like "tag bundles". If we consider tags as ontology classes, then tag bundles can be thought as functions that define the "owl:equivalentClass" relation or the "relatedTo" relation among different tags. It could be an interesting research project to investigate if we can use software programs to automatically extract ontologies from tag bundles that are defined by users of the same community (e.g., semantic web hobbyists).

Web 3.0, Web 4.0 and Web 10.0

Personally I just come to some understanding of Web 2.0. Bloggers are already thinking about Web 3.0, Web 4.0, and even Web 10.0!

• Web 3.0 (QTSaver)


• What to expect from Web 3.0 (ZDNet.Com)


• DeWitt Clinton thinks Web 2.0 to Web 10.0 (unto.net)


• Think Web 4.0! (blog.outer-court.com)

Some highlights:

• Web 1.0 was the Hypertext/CGI Web. (the basics)


• Web 2.0 is the Community Web (for people: apps/sites connecting them).


• Web 3.0 is the Semantic Web (for machines).


• Web 4.0 is when these technologies come together to form what I call the "Learning Web".

If Web 2.0 is about the convergence of text and semantic data, Web 3.0 will do the same for all digital media. …What will Web 10.0 be...? Your very experiences, your senses, perhaps even your thoughts, will be broadcast and archived for anyone to download and view.

IEEE Digital Library Offers RSS Feeds

I just discovered that IEEE Computer Society now offers the availability of the latest magazines and transactions content through RSS. Now you can monitor your favorite IEEE magazines and journals the same way you monitor news and blogs.

Some of my favorite IEEE RSS include

• Computer


• IEEE Intelligent Systems


• IEEE Internet Computing


• IEEE Pervasive Computing

Semantic Interoperability in E-Government

Yesterday I attended SICoP 2006 (the 4th Semantic Interoperability for E-Government Conference). I was there with my colleagues to showcase Image Matters's new product called KnowledgeSmarts.

The purpose of this conference is to create synergy between the government agencies and the industry companies that share a common interest in semantic interoperability technology.

Many agencies in the US government see the lack of semantic interoperability is a big problem. Without it, information can't be effectively shared between different agencies. It's often the case that individual agencies invest heavily on data modeling and data collection, but later they each found the effort is unnecessary only if they knew how share and interoperate in the beginning.

Fly the Mothership with SWOOP

I'm a regular user of SWOOP, a lightweight ontology editor and explorer developed by the MINDSWAP group. Today I downloaded a copy of Swoop v2.3 beta 3. After using it for few hours, I love it.

I especially like the "Fly the Mothership" feature. It allows users to view ontologies in an intuitive graph diagram. The following is a screenshot of using this feature to view OWL Time ontology and a use case of the time ontology:

Help Wanted: LISP Semantic Web Project

Brandon Werner is starting a new semantic web project called cl-semantic. He is also looking for help. Looks like an interesting project just because everyone else is writing code in Java. :-)

Project Description:

This is research using Lisp to develop macros for generating and processing semantic data and programmatically manipulating and generating OWL, similar (or dead on) Racer System's RacerMaster, which is RacerPro as an object code library. It is also hoped that this project will apply speed paths based off of research from Eugene Agichtein & Silviu Cucerzan regarding predicting performance of relational extraction tasks (RE). This project seeks to re-create some of the work done with RacerPro, however the focus of this project will be on developing a language model for Reasoning Systems to allow for an open-source and vibrant community of developers to continue the work of improving reasoning systems to drive the Semantic Web.

Can ThinkMap Make Better Flickr and Technorati?

Tagging systems are common on the Web these days, e.g., Flickr and Technorati. These systems enable publishers to add meaningful content descriptions without requiring much overhead in metadata editing. They also allow readers to discover information using the exact keywords that the publishers use.

Moreover, content search built on a tagging system is relatively easy to implement. If you use WordPress, you can download and install Jerome's Keywords Plugin, which enables your blog to have a tag cosmos similar to what you see on Technorati and Flickr.

It's clear that tagging in Flickr and Technorati is what distinguishes these sites from their competitors. Nevertheless, I think the current tagging systems still have some space for improvement.

Web 2.0 Validator

If you ask people "What's Web 2.0?" Different people will give you different answers. In my mind, central to Web 2.0 is Ajax and semantic markups (i.e., microformats, RDF, or OWL).

Question: How do I know if my website is Web 2.0?

Answer: Do one of the following:

1. Read what Tim O'Reilly has described -- a laundry of list of Web 2.0 characteristics. Evaluate whether the technology that backs you site meets what he has described.


2. If reading is too much for you, use Web 2.0 Validator -- an automated web tool that scores your site based on a set of Web 2.0 characteristics. Note that the tool does pay attention to whether a site (a) uses Semantic Markups, (b) mentions RDF and the Semantic Web.

Here is how my website scored:

Office 2.0: Moving from Desktop Applications to Web Browser

My friend Ismael is all about how to simplify IT business and increase productivity. His view of the next generation business application suite is called Office 2.0. In a nutshell, Office 2.0 is a collection of interactive business applications that run on web browsers. He sees Ajax as the enabling technique that will revolutionize business applications. His favorite Office 2.0 application is Gmail.

In this blog, he describes few rules that a good Office 2.0 application should obey:

• No client application other than a web browser


• No files on personal computer


• Compatibility with the most popular web browsers


• No browser extension or plugin


• Collaboration features are good


• Syndication is the way to go


• AJAX is better


• Competition brings alternatives


• Data import/export is mandatory

Echoing what TimBL advocates, the following is another rule for Office 2.0:

• All resources in an application must be identifiable by URI

How Elk Famers Use RFID and GPS (and Ontology?)

If you think city people are the only ones who use RFID and GPS, then you are wrong. These technologies also play an important role in the life of many Idaho elk farmers.

In Idaho people farm elk, not all people, some farm potatoes. These elk farmers need to protect their herds against disease, and document the fact that their herds are disease free. These farmers must register the locations of their herds using GPS coordinates, and then collect geospatial data concerning the details of the herd, their immunizations, history, etc.

This is becoming increasingly important, since if one herd has a disease, it could impact the sales of all meat in that region. Farmers must not only protect their animals, but effectively market and promote the health status of their herd in order to continue selling during times of disease.

It is not enough to document the location and health of your herd, one must document the location and health of each individual animal. RFID ear tags are often a good solution to this.

Source: PDAs, Elk, RFID, & Geospatial Data Collection

I wonder if in the near future, Semantic Web technology will also find its applications in a non-Web related domain such as farming and fishing? I did find a document that describes a plant genealogy ontology (PDF) -- a description of the breeding history of "germplasm", but unfortunately the document did not describe how this ontology can be used to build applications.

BTW, the ontology seems to be developed using the Prot?g? Ontology Editor. :-)

What Others Have to Say about the Semantic Web

Most of my Semantic Web related discussions are between groups of Semantic Web hobbyists. While I enjoy talking to others who share my interests, but sometimes I think our discussions are limited because we all see the Semantic Web from a Computer Science research perspective. It's kind of like a group of philosophers discussing hardest problems behind a closed door, and they never get a chance to hear what others (those non-philosophers) have to say about the problems.

I find blogosphere to be the best place to hear what other non-Semantic Web hobbyists have to say about the Semantic Web. Technorati Watchlist is a good place to start.

Here is a few favorite links on my Technorati Watchlist:

• http://www.technorati.com/search/ontology


• http://www.technorati.com/search/folksonomy


• http://www.technorati.com/search/RDF


• http://www.technorati.com/search/semantic+web

Here is a recent blog from a mother of two kids who worked in the IT field for 7 years. In the blog she describes her understanding of the Semantic Web.

3 Reasons Why WordPress Should Not Drop RSS 1.0

There are talks about dropping RSS 1.0 from the WordPress development. RSS 1.0 is the only RDF version of the RSS feed format. I'm very disappointed to hear this news.

I agree RSS 1.0 is an old technology, but it's not a dead technology. People do use this format to build interesting and useful applications, e.g., PlanetRDF.com. All blogs on PlanetRDF are aggregated from various RSS 1.0 feeds published by semantic web hobbyist.

I acknowledge similar application can be built without using RSS 1.0 (i.e., RDF). For example, Planet Geospatial is a feed aggregator that uses feeds collected from Feedburner (I presume it's using the RSS 2.0 format). Update: see James Fee's comment on how Planet Geospatial actually builds its blog aggregator.
Reasons that I believe RSS 1.0 should not be dropped from WordPress:

1. RDF and XML are two completely different technologies. They are two representation formats for solving different problems. Dropping RSS 1.0 (RDF) from WordPress will discourage developers from using WordPress as a platform for building the next generation Semantic Web applications.


2. Dropping RSS 1.0 can't be justified just because all RSS readers today support both RSS 1.0 and RSS 2.0. Granted that RSS readers today consume and process feeds of different formats pretty much the same way. However, it's difficult to say whether this phenomenon will continue to hold in the future as people gain better knowledge about the use of RDF on the Web. Perhaps new Semantic Web technologies will open new doors to the consumption of RDF (RSS 1.0), which will enable us to build more smart web applications.


3. As a WordPress user, I like to have options. I want to be able to choose the format of RSS feeds that I publish. I don't want to be told what format is the "standard" format and what format is the "right" format.

Music Genome Project

The Music Geonome Project attempts to create the world largest metadatabase of music that was made in the past sixty years. The basic idea is to get a group of musicologists (music ontologist I guess) to analyze each song using 400 distinct musical characteristcs.

As a result of this project, it comes to the creation of Pandora -- a service that help you to discover new music you'll love.

For almost six years now, we have been hard at work on the Music Genome Project. It's the most comprehensive analysis of music ever undertaken. Together our team of thirty musician-analysts have been listening to music, one song at a time, studying and collecting literally hundreds of musical details on every song. It takes 20-30 minutes per song to capture all of the little details that give each recording its magical sound - melody, harmony, instrumentation, rhythm, vocals, lyrics ... and more - close to 400 attributes! We continue this work every day to keep up with the incredible flow of great new music coming from studios, stadiums and garages around the country.

If this project becomes successful, it will prove the following:

1. Ontologies are best to be defined by trained experts -- at least for some well-known domains such as musics, movies, and books.


2. The ability to understand and model semantic relations are crucial to the development of intelligent recommendation services.

Additional blogger comments -- here, here.

The Good Deeds of Blog Aggregators

According to Jeff Thurston, there are at least five different types of blog web sites:

1. Commercial Blogs: written with a financial view - sensitive to causing maximum financial return and oriented toward causing a stir to attract readers. Blogging for financial gain alone is different than blogging as a columnist, for example.


2. News Blogs: Basically scanning the news and re-writing what already exists. Original content is low. Regurgitated content is high.


3. Original Content Blogs: Strives for original content, links to existing content in exceptional circumstances to support original content. Opinionated. Perceptive.


4. Advert Blog: Sharply written to look like a blog but serving as advertisement. Usually easy to pinpoint over time.


5. Blog Aggregators: This is a special group, [which captures the blogs of a particular community or a specific topic].

Blog aggregators are great because they save me a lot of time on discovering new blogs. They also produce aggregated RSS feeds of all the blogs that I want to read.

Two blog aggregator sites that I monitor closely:

• Planet RDF -- blogs that talk about RDF, OWL and the Semantic Web


• Planet Geospatial -- blogs written by GIS Professionals and Hobbyists

The Geospatial Semantic Web Blog is a blog that combinds the two (sort of) ... :-)

The Next Big Thing on the Web -- Video

I got my first iPod as an X'mas gift. Since then, I've been busy discovering new podcasts and managing my MP3 library. After reading this IHT article, it seems that audio is not enough. Video clips, video blogs, and video search will be the next big thing on the Web.

I'm not talking about those illegal movie videos that you can download from a P2P network. I'm talking about free legal video archives.

• BBC internet video library


• CNN video clips (of course)


• Movies at Internet Archive


• Video blogs & search

Some of my favorites:

• The Little Match Seller (1902)


• The Exorcism (1972)


• The Semantic Web (2005) :-)

Good Features in OWL 1.1

OWL 1.1 is an extension to the existing OWL language. While it's a work-in-progress, some of the described new features can be used to address immediate system development needs.

Among all the new features in OWL 1.1, I especially like the ability to define a Resource that is both an individual and an class, and the ability of create user-defined datatypes (e.g., Datatype(over18 base(xsd:integer) minInclusive("18"^^xsd:integer)))

Other related blogs:

• Why not an XG for OWL 1.1?


• `K, what's wrong with this?

Re: Misconceptions about OWL Reasoning

Few days ago I wrote about misconceptions that surround OWL reasoning. I received a good comment from Max V?lkel --

Stating a rule like the one in your example has nothing to do with any
kind of OWL. OWL Lite, OWL DL and OWL Full are three sets of defined
semantics (you can think of it as three sets of rules). With regard to
performance: OWL Full is simply undecidable in some cases, which means,
ther is never an answer to some queries. Btw. not all reasoners are
based on FOL theorem provers. KAON2 is different.

First, Max seems to suggest that OWL reasoning has nothing to do with different sub-languages of OWL. Second, Max kindly point out that OWL-Full reasoners need not to be built on FOL theorem provers. I agree with him on both points. However, there is something that I want to clarify.

I agree that given an OWL ontology, the kind of sub-language that it belongs to is a matter of semantic representation, which is not dictated by any kind of inference rules (such as the ones that I have defined). However, the OWL language type of an ontology does matter in building real world applications.

When building an ontology for a particular application, it is important to know how this ontology will be used. If the ontology is used to support logical inference, it is important to know the kind of logical inference that the application will need to support -- is it within the capability of a target reasoner?

The use of a DL reasoner is typical in many applications today because developers can easily find an off-the-shelf DL reasoner. Reusing an existing DL reasoner often helped to reduce the development efforts in building logical inference support. In my experience, using OWL-DL alone is insufficient to support the needs of many real-world applications. As an engineer, I used to be afraid of telling people that my system exploits OWL reasoning that is beyond OWL-DL because I was afraid that people will criticize my system's non-deterministic behavior or performance.

Over the years, I learn that there is nothing wrong with using OWL reasoning that is beyond DL. In fact, it is almost desirable to do so for many different reasons -- this will be a subject for some other time. When I wrote "Misconceptions about OWL Reasoning", I intended to share my learned lesson with the readers, so that they don't have to rediscover what I have already discovered -- it's okay to use whatever the kind of OWL sub-languages and reasoning as long as they help you to solve real-world problems.