SVN is now up and running again. ApacheMap and MonoBackup are on google code:
ApacheMap: https://code.google.com/p/apachegeomap/source/checkout
Mono-backup: https://code.google.com/p/m0n0-backup/source/checkout
wp-rdfa and wp-dephorm are hosted by wordpress:
wp-rdfa: http://svn.wp-plugins.org/wp-rdfa/
wp-dephorm: http://svn.wp-plugins.org/wp-dephorm/
Feel free to download alter and suggest changes again.
I’ve just confirmed wp-RDFa and wp-dephorm are both compatible with WordPress 2.9-RC1. So your free to test the new release without breaking your semantic web presence or leaving your readers vulnerable to the prying eyes of phorm.
If you spot any problems just drop me a mail via the contact form and I’ll look into it.
Why open data?
Why should you use open data on your site? Data is what drives commerce on the internet, its also what helps us all search and find what we are looking for. Finding relevant data presented to in a useful way to your needs is however becoming harder due to the shear volume of data on the internet. This is why open data and open standards are gathering support from such organisations as w3c. Open data has the potential to solve many problems of finding and sharing information on the web for both humans and machines.
Linked and Open Data!
Open Data is a philosophy and practice requiring that certain data is freely available to everyone, without restrictions from copyrights, patents or other mechanisms of control. It has a similar ethos to a number of other “Open” movements and communities such as open source. However open data on its own needs a framework to make that data useful. This is know as the semantic web, or as Tim Berners-Lee puts it “next web”. Linked data and the semantic is a way of using data in which the semantics of information and services on the web is defined, making it possible for the web to understand and satisfy the requests of humans and machines to use the web content. In layman’s terms its a way using the web as a universal medium for data, information and knowledge exchange.
The Purpose of Semantic Data.
Humans are capable of using the Web to carry out tasks such as finding the Finnish word for “monkey”, reserving a library book, and searching for a low price for a DVD. However, a computer cannot accomplish the same tasks without human direction because web pages are designed to be read by people, not machines. The semantic web is a vision of information that is understandable by computers, so that they can perform more of the tedious work involved in finding, sharing, and combining information on the web.
Gains from Linked and Open Data.
Opening your data and using standards can bring significant gains to usefulness of the data you are already publishing on your web site. The data is already there but in human form, using mark-up designed to be interpreted by computers frees that data for use in other applications or mash-ups. The main concern of most organisations will be “Why should I give this data away? Isn’t it worth money?”. The main answer is your already giving this data away but only for humans! Allowing computers and programs to analyse this data can open up your data to new concepts and ideas and ultimately new revenue streams. For example you product data may get included in a new application for a mobile phone platform, or the data on your website could be used to plot events happening in the local area on Google maps. There are of course thousands more examples and potentially millions of people who could use your data in new and exciting ways. The possibilities are endless, and open data allows development of the way your business works without huge investments in R&D teams. Your data could be used in ways you’ve never imagined. Because this data is linked it will also allow people to find out further information about the data set, because it can all be analysed by machines, this could lead to new markets finding your products via other data sets and that can mean new customers!
How to share your data?
There are multiple ways to share your data and depending upon your data set this can influence your choice. The wikipedia article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_Web provides more in depth technical information should you wish to learn more. Using RDF and N-Triples is an incredibly powerful way of parsing your data however if your looking for details on humans the FOAF vocabulary may be the correct method for you. The data can either be embedded in the HTML of your site or accessed via RESTful API using SPARQL or XML. Of course you can use a multitude of methods and link the data sets together making the data you already own far more useful on the “next web”. At the very least I recommend that people start to look at this technology and keep an eye on developments.
Further Reading.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_Web
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linked_Data
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/tim_berners_lee_on_the_next_web.html
