The document discusses accelerating the development of semantic technologies. It provides background on semantic web and outlines current uses including knowledge graphs and social graphs. However, semantic web development is moving slowly due to lack of labor to create taxonomies and metadata, and new tools are developing slowly. Big data is also complicating goals, with huge amounts of data generated daily. The document calls for broadening participation in knowledge codification and considering if tagging is still needed, or if AI could take a more central role.

1. LET’S GET THIS PARTY JUMP STARTED
THOUGHTS ON ACCELERATING THE
DEVELOPMENT OF SEMANTIC TECHNOLOGIES
January 30, 2013
By Matt Schmidt
Director, Interactive Production
Creative Lift

2. ME
• MA in sociology from UCSF
• 16 years experience in online marketing and
development
• Areas of expertise
– SEO
– SEM
– Digital project management
• Work for Creative Lift, a full-service creative agency
in SF that is focused on KPI-related results
2

3. WHAT IS THE SEMANTIC WEB?
An attempt to answer two questions:
– How do we assign meaning to data so that
machines can help make it more relevant to us?
– How do we make use of that meaning?
3

4. WHAT IS THE SEMANTIC WEB?
• Nova Spivack believes that these questions will define the
next two generations of online technology.
4

5. THE PROMISE
“Computer, What is the molecular formula of aluminum sulfide crystal?”
5

6. CURRENT SEMANTIC WEB DEVELOPMENT
Ontology development tools
6

7. CURRENT SEMANTIC WEB DEVELOPMENT
Tagging Schemas
7

8. CURRENT SEMANTIC WEB DEVELOPMENT
Query tools
8

9. CURRENT SEMANTIC WEB DEVELOPMENT
Databases being coded
9

10. CURRENT SEMANTIC WEB USES
Knowledge graph
10

11. CURRENT SEMANTIC WEB USES
Social graph
11

12. CURRENT SEMANTIC WEB USES
Formatting shared media
12

13. CURRENT SEMANTIC WEB USES
Social media query applications
13

14. THE REALITY OF THE SEMANTIC WEB
It’s moving really slowly
14

15. WHY?
Spivack gives 3 reasons:
1) lack of labor to create and refine taxonomies
and ontologies (also, they need to be validated
and agreed upon)
2) Immense amounts of data need to have
metadata added
3) It’s a new technology and tools are developing
relatively slowly to take advantage of it
15

16. WHY?
Semantic web success requires a new way of
thinking about how we digitally communication
• It needs to be formally codified
• Codification needs to happen in real time
• We need to think creatively about who will be
involved in this codification. How do we most
effectively share responsibility
16

17. A WRINKLE: BIG DATA
• Complicating these goals, the amount of data being
generated on the web is exploding with the
proliferation of social and mobile media.
• Lots of (big) data
– 340 million tweets a day.
– Facebook - 500 Terabytes of data per day
– 3 million Foursquare check ins per day
– 40 million Tumblr posts per day
– 2 exabytes of data traveling the internet per
day
17

18. ENVISIONING A SEMANTIC FUTURE
18

19. WHAT NOW
How do we get this semantic party jump started?
• Lisa Jean Moore
– Broaden the participation in knowledge
codification, both in the development of
ontologies and data coding
• Tom Lee
– Is there a need to have a tagging phase at all?
– Might AI be ready for center stage
19

20. THANKS