The Semantic Web aims to make web content understandable by machines through adding semantics, or meaning, to the data. It uses technologies like the Resource Description Framework (RDF) to describe web resources in a way that computers can process. This allows intelligent applications to collect, combine, and present information from different sources in a meaningful way, performing tasks like finding product prices or flight schedules without human direction. While still developing, the Semantic Web could revolutionize areas like scientific publishing by enabling real-time sharing of experimental data online.