On Sep 4, 2013, at 9:27 AM, Shaun Ellis <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> I get the basic concepts of linked data. But what I don't understand is
> why the idea has been around so long, yet there seems to be a dearth of
> useful applications that live up to the hype. So, what I want to learn
> about linked data is: who's using it effectively? Maybe there's lots of
> stuff out there that I just don't know about?
I've been doing some reading and evaluating in the regard to Linked Data [0], and I think the problem is multi-diminentional:
* when people create Linked Data they all too often do
not necessarily use URIs from other linked data sets
or the URIs are not persistent
* there is not a critical mass Linked Data available
for the killer app to be demonstrated; the chicken &
egg problem
* encoding data/information/knowledge in the form of
triples (whether it be RDF/XML, Turtle, or N3) is not
trivial, let alone easy to understand despite the
fact that there are only three parts
* vocabularies get in the way; there does not seem to be
a clear cut way of deciding what semantic(s) to use for
describing things. FOAF? Dublin Core? Etc. I call this
the Tower Of Babel problem
* our (everybody's) data is dirty, inconsistent, or manifests
a wide variety of integrity issues. People can tolerate
this sort of ambiguity. Computers can't.
[0] beginnings of a Linked Data guidebook - http://sites.tufts.edu/liam/2013/08/08/liam-guidebook/
--
Eric Lease Morgan
