Ask HN: Why hasn't the Semantic Web caught on? - miguelrochefort
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throwaway2016a
I think in a way it has, just not in the purist sense that Semantic Web
proponents have advocated.

Microformats, semantic HTML tags, and non-rendered meta-data can be found all
over the place. Especially in eCommerce.

What hasn't caught on is the formal language of the semantic web. And for that
my hypothesis is that it is so formal and so strict that it produces a barrier
of entry that is too high for non-academics. RDF has a bit of a leaning curve
compared to competing technologies. Furthermore, FOAF (Friend of a Friend)
last time I looked at it had a lot of outdated domain specific tags. For
example, there is a tag for ICQ (an instant messenger practically no one uses
anymore but was very popular in the 90s) but no tags for new technology rather
than, say, having generic tags that can be used for any messenger system and
using attributes.

Summary:

\- High barrier of entry

\- Easier to use alternatives

\- It hasn't really failed, it's just taken a form that is more friendly for
day-to-day

Edit: Also, if you go the Semantic Web Meetup in Cambridge there are a lot of
talks of the medical industry, database industry, and things like that which
show it is alive [https://www.meetup.com/The-Cambridge-Semantic-Web-Meetup-
Gro...](https://www.meetup.com/The-Cambridge-Semantic-Web-Meetup-
Group/events/232572089/)

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PaulHoule
It depends what you mean by "Semantic Web"

Many companies are using RDF-based technology and are not talkative about it
because they see it as a secret weapon. I find out about these by going to
conferences, cold calling, etc.

People are slowly starting to understand about JSON-LD, maybe around 2025
people are going to realize that it's a problem that vanilla JSON lacks
decimal math. (Even COBOL programmers know if you do money math with floats
you will sooner or later cut somebody a check for the wrong amount) JSON-LD
unobtrusively adds the "good parts" of XML (decimal math, date and time
types,...) to JSON.

As for the model of "Linked Data" the deep problem is that the model of "I
publish data, throw it over the wall, and my responsibility is done" does not
work. As much as people like to deny it, there is a science of quality, and it
involves forming feedback loops that just don't exist in the likes of DBpedia,
Wikidata, etc. See the last part of this essay

[http://ontology2.com/the-book/data-lakes-ponds-and-
droplets....](http://ontology2.com/the-book/data-lakes-ponds-and-
droplets.html)

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codingdave
It helps to first ask what problem the semantic web is trying to solve. It
most business cases, it solves more problems for 3rd parties consuming your
markup than it does for your own business.

Because most of the time, you already have your data in a structured format of
some kind. So if you need to share data between your own systems, you use the
underlying data, not the presentation layer. And your end users see the UI
created by your markup, so they don't really care either. Semantic markup
really helps other people ingest your data... so unless you intend for your
data to be shared, it infrequently makes a ton of business sense to invest
effort into making things semantic.

That being said, if you DO intend to share your data, and want it exposed and
usable, then it does make sense to work at it. But in the grand scheme of
things... where does most web content fall?

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mindcrime
In many ways it has, you just don't necessarily see it. SemWeb tech is largely
_not_ something humans see directly... machines use the SemWeb to do things
for humans, but the back-end mechanism is opaque to the human user.

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tmaly
creating a really good ontology is not an easy tasks.

also, you need to decide on a format, and there are all sorts of micro formats
to choose from. You would have to get everyone on board.

Writing HTML from the old days was pretty easy, and most browsers could handle
bad HTML. I am not sure if the same could be said about bad micro formats.

