Is the Semantic Web going mainstream?

Yahoo’s announcement that they are expanding their open search platform to include support for semantic web standards is big in many ways. For one, it brings the Semantic Web (and microformats) into the mainstream. Google might follow as well (which would really do the trick).

Here is an interesting thought. Given that many life science resources are available in Semantic Web formats, does that mean that when Yahoo or Google index semantic content, that the relationships captured in Uniprot (for example) or maybe even Freebase, get indexed and available via search? How effectively will we be able to traverse graphs and relationships? Nova Spivack seems more than happy to open up the content of Twine into the Yahoo index. The following is actually an ideal situation

If Yahoo and possibly Google make search better by indexing all sorts of metadata, there is then an even larger opportunity to help users do useful things with that metadata after they find it, and to create their own metadata so their stuff can be found. This is where Twine fits in. We don’t believe ordinary Webmasters are going to write microformats or RDF by hand. Even hard-core Semantic Web researchers don’t do that. Ultimately end-users need user-friendly services that do this for them automatically, or at least make it easier to do. Twine not only does this, but provides a place where users can collect, organize, share and discover other interesting content around their interests.

Read Paul Miller’s ZDNet post for a cautious view. Both he and Nova point out some of the underlying dangers and why we need to proceed thoughtfully.

Technorati Tags: Semantic Web, Search, Yahoo, Twine, Freebase