Coming soon to a screen near you: Semantic Web
Source: Asia Computer Weekly, September 2003
By Danny Lim

Singapore: The Semantic Web will be the next big thing in Web services.
 
It will become indispensable and is likely to see widespread adoption by 2007, said David Carew, senior e-business architect, IBM Worldwide.
 
Carew was in town in mid-September to share his insights on the emerging trends in Web services at XML Asia 2003. The conference discussed the latest XML management issues and applications.
 
The Semantic Web is an extension of the current Web where information is given well-defined meaning in a standard way, enabling computers and people to work better in cooperation. It creates an environment where software agents roaming from page to page can readily carry out sophisticated tasks for users.
 
For instance, if a business needs quotations from various vendors now, it has to ask each one separately because they all work with different applications.
 
With the Semantic Web, one can encapsulate that request within an XML document, and all the vendors will know at once what is needed, and can respond appropriately without human intervention.
 
“This will speed things up a great deal because you send out your queries only once instead of several times,” explained Carew.
 
Although the incorporation of semantic structure to the existing Web—driven mainly by developers of online purchasing software—is still at a very rudimentary stage, Carew is optimistic that widespread adoption of Semantic Web will come sooner rather than later.
 
“Semantic Web is a key component to the whole theme of e-business on demand, so I would expect widespread adoption to come about in 2006–2007, when Web services and utility computing become ubiquitous,” he said.
 
Its pace of adoption will be aided by the pragmatic approach the industry is taking to encourage the growth of Semantic Web.
 
Unlike COBOL (which had a similar purpose as Semantic Web), which was bogged down by its complexity, the future of Semantic Web looks far brighter because developers have chosen to start simple and add on functions as more users come aboard, he said.

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