Why Linked Data?
Paul Miller
The Cloud of Data
paul.miller@cloudofdata.com
cloudofdata.com

Web built on connections bet ween documents...
cloudofdata.com www.flickr.com/photos/calliope/306564541/

...but ultimately about connections bet ween people
cloudofdata.com

Data less connected - more siloised.
cloudofdata.com www.flickr.com/photos/wyoming_1/169388525/

...and people are!
“Stop hugging
your data...”
Sir Tim Berners-Lee, 2009
bit.ly/409WWE
cloudofdata.com www.flickr.com/photos/_-amy-_/3167333250/

eg Wikipedia data
boxes to DBpedia
cloudofdata.com

eg UK Gov
Image © 2009, Crown Copyright Reserved
bit.ly/ztOed
cloudofdata.com www.flickr.com/photos/lorentey/1438477358/

eg BBC
cloudofdata.com bbc.co.uk/music/

eg NY Times
cloudofdata.com www.flickr.com/photos/scobleizer/2510349462/

Data OPEN for use and re-use as Svein-Magnus described...
But that’s not all...
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Data LINKED to other places outside firewall
eg BBC trusts and relies upon MusicBrainz
cloudofdata.com www.flickr.com/photos/foxypar4/2124673642/

“the Web done
right”
Sir Tim Berners-Lee, 2008
harks back to TimBL’s original vision
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for a Read/Write Web

Use URIs to name things
Use HTTP URIs so that they can be followed
When someone follows a URI, provide useful information
Include links to other URIs, so that more can be discovered.
cloudofdata.com www.w3.org/DesignIssues/LinkedData.html

ECS
South-
Sem- Wiki-
BBC Surge ampton
LIBRIS Web- company
Playcount Radio Central RDF
Data ohloh
Resex
Doap- Buda-
Music- space Semantic ReSIST
brainz Audio- pest Eurécom
Project
Flickr Web.org
MySpace Scrobbler QDOS SW BME Wiki
exporter
Wrapper
Conference IRIT
Corpus Toulouse
RAE National
BBC BBC Crunch 2001 Science
FOAF SIOC ACM
BBC Music Later + John Base Revyu Foundation
Jamendo Peel profiles Sites
TOTP Open-
Guides
DBLP
flickr RKB
Project
Pub Geo- Euro- wrappr Explorer
Guten- Virtuoso
Guide names stat Pisa CORDIS
berg Sponger eprints
BBC
Programmes Open
Calais
RKB
riese World Linked
ECS
Magna- Fact- MDB IEEE New-
South-
tune book
ampton castle
RDF Book
DBpedia Mashup
Linked
GeoData lingvoj Freebase LAAS-
US CiteSeer
Census CNRS
W3C DBLP
Data IBM
WordNet Hannover
UniRef
GEO
UMBEL Species DBLP
Gov-
Track Berlin
Reactome
LinkedCT UniParc
Open Taxonomy
Cyc Yago Drug
PROSITE
Daily Bank
Med
Pub GeneID
Chem
Homolo KEGG UniProt
Gene
Pfam ProDom
Disea- CAS
Gene
some
ChEBI Ontology
Symbol OMIM
Inter
Pro
UniSTS PDB
HGNC
MGI
PubMed
As of July 2009
cloudofdata.com richard.cyganiak.de/2007/10/lod/lod-datasets_2009-07-14.pdf

Open Data need not be Linked Data
(eg US Data.gov)
Linked Data need not be Open Data
(licensing hell)
cloudofdata.com www.flickr.com/photos/joevare/3743653601/

how much mis-licensed?
‘Copyright’ MAY NOT APPLY!
cloudofdata.com www.flickr.com/photos/ldodds/4043803502/

cut costs, mass produce, standardise
- create opportunities for growth
What does this mean for Enterprise?
Data as Commodity
cloudofdata.com www.flickr.com/photos/starrett/3123216825/

Microsoft Data Centre, Dublin With data in the Cloud,
barriers get lower.
It’s easier to TRY...
cloudofdata.com www.datacenterknowledge.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/aerial-1000.jpg

Boundaries blur, walls (like this one) fall.
Data and processes move back and forth.
Fears eventually diminish.
cloudofdata.com www.flickr.com/photos/andrei_dimofte/1590561883/

“from Data Centre
to data-centric”
JP Rangaswami, 2009
data is a cost
we treat all data as Core and confidential
most actually Context and a commodity
cloudofdata.com www.flickr.com/photos/dsifry/2104378305/
Think Different!

Closing Thoughts
cloudofdata.com www.flickr.com/photos/dagpeak/13437011/

The Web is about connections
Data today often best connected inside silos
Simple principles of Linked Data create opportunities to
manipulate data at Web scale
Licensing frameworks emerging
Understanding of the boundary is required… but worth the effort.
cloudofdata.com www.flickr.com/photos/dagpeak/13437011/

cloud of data
Thank you Download this presentation
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Dr Paul Miller
The Cloud of Data
paul.miller@cloudofdata.com
Made on a
skype: cloudofdata
Mac
phone: +44 7769 740083
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