This document discusses the semantic web and why websites should implement it. The semantic web aims to make data on the web more easily understood by machines by linking related information. This allows searches to return more relevant results and data to be more easily found, shared and combined across websites. The document provides examples of how semantic web technologies like HTML5 microdata can be used to tag website content so it is better understood by search engines and machines. It argues that implementing these standards will provide benefits to users by improving search and allowing richer integration of online information.

1. Semantic Website!
Why Bother?
@iLinkoln
25 JAN 2011
“the Hub” Lincoln University, Lincoln UK

2. What is it?
The Semantic Web
An extension of the current Web that provides an easier
way to find, share, reuse and combine information more
easily

3. How?...
 Web 2.0 focuses on people. Social-media
 Semantic Web focuses on machines/
computers
 The goal is to create a Web CMS
 It is there to make machines understand
data on the Web.
 To Make Search relevant etc.

4. Googly Eyes...
• We roam the web searching everyday
• We are getting more picky about speed
• We want recent dates and relevant data
• We are smarter in 3 seconds
• We ....

5. Websites...
• A lot of them are static with “stale” data
• Require manual updates etc.
• Some of them are dynamic with new data
• some data is hard to find but its there
• Live Indexing is leaving it out...
• Scraping is helping this but its annoying
sometimes

6. Typical website
• Have relevant pages
• Home, everything about it in summary
• About us, Is all about who?
• Products/Services
• Blog, where you share your Knol/Expe
• Contact us, All your contact details etc

7. Who’s job is it?
• Webmasters
Data can be integrated over the web, and
this will happen when we all understand the
benefits of building websites with semantics.

8. Tech-wise...
• Tons of apps now rely on availability of data that is ready. Eg flight info, health
info, gov data, person info, restaurant, general knol, company info, geo info
etc.
• We need to link the data silos without having to download it.
• Data can be integrated over the web. This will happen when we all
understand the benefits of building websites with semantics.

9. Basics
The Semantic website
HTML5 MICRODATA
• Map your various data to an abstract data representation e.g. people,
companies, events etc
• Merge the result e.g. Person
• you can now make a rich query on the Whole
• This can be merged with wikipedia and linkedin etc to create up to date data
on the subject.
• OTHER METHODS INCLUDE “MICROFORMATS , RDF and RDFa”

10. WHY BOTHER?

11. Consider this...

12. In HTML5 with Microdata

13. My Rich results

14. Biz Rich Results

15. Where are you at?

16. Where is the semantic
web?
- It provides the technologies to make the integration
possible. They are the RDF, Microformats, and Microdata
among many.
- HTML5 Microdata is not a W3C Standard just yet. But it's
the simplest and easiest to implement, young and built
from past mistakes.
- Does not require fixes and patches. Works seamlessly
with HTML5

17. Its easy to do.

18. Questions?
• http://diveintohtml5.org
• http://data-vocabulary.org
• http://www.webopedia.com/DidYouKnow/
Internet/2007/Semantic_Web.asp
• http://infomesh.net/2001/swintro/
• http://safarista.com/ for help with it.

19. The Goal is the
creation of a Web CMS
that makes sense to
machines that make
our life easier.

20. Nelson Kelem
@iLinkoln