Valleywag
Page A1, Column 1 on a Sunday: the New York Times introduces the world to Web 3.0. It's "a layer of meaning on top of the existing Web" and "the foundation for systems that can reason in a human fashion."
The idea of the Semantic Web has been around since 1999. Why is the Times treating it as new? For the same reason that the Times put Burning Man afterparties on the Styles section cover: It sells papers.
But take a closer look — there's no quote from Google VP/spokesperson Marissa Mayer. In fact, there's no quote from anyone at Google. You can bet writer John Markoff gave them the chance. Other than nods to PageRank and Google Maps, the company isn't even mentioned.
(One other company gets their message through, though. The creator of would-be A.I. system Cyc tells Markoff his system should be able to answer, say, "Which American city would be most vulnerable to an anthrax attack during summer?" Sounds like a researcher going after more military money.)
In short, the Times wants to announce a trend just in case that trend actually materializes in the next few months. But don't bet on it — Google smelled a dud and didn't touch this story, and neither should anyone looking for the real next big thing.
Comments
on target.
what are you talking about? elgoog didn't smell a dud, they just aren't doing any real work in this area for implementation, though quite practically doing some of this within labs...ibm, however, is doing some solid work in this area, as are many involved with the w3c, others working on automation of web mining tools and so on...clearly you haven't done any research in this area, sorry. i do see yahoo dipping their toes a bit more, but it looks like the article was not really interested in the major portals and search engines, as their current offerings don't wrestle with this...BUT i do agree that 'web 3.0' is a gross term for this...haven't you been following rdf and other standards for the past few years?
Wikipedia has easier ways to deal with such nonsense... delete any attempts at starting an article claiming "web 3.0" is the Semantic Web, and add a redirect for those who may still confuse the two:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_3
In the meantime, Google already implemented first steps of the lower-case semantic web -- search for [population of berlin] to see it in action, no meta-tagging by web authors needed. http://www.well.com/~doctorow/metacrap.htm
The only tech stories that matter are the ones where a Google spokesbot comments. Otherwise, it's bullsh*t. Duly noted!
I also like the part where you say Google passed on the story, even though you have zero clue whether they were called or not, or even any argument as to why they should be called.
This is actually more pathetic than the original story.
PS I love how Denton has you on Eastern time. Yeah, you totally rule the Valley scene. And your inability to configure WordPress (or is it still MT?) lends you even more credibility.
So glad I had these shirts made! http://www.flickr.com/photos/brianoberkirch/163490324/
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