Jeni's Musings

Jeni,

Bob has already said some things I would have liked to say, but I think it is worth repeating one of the main issue. You can

• use other types of RDF serializations than RDF/XML if you want, or simply use SPARQL endpoints to datasets (it is worth checking out the http://esw.w3.org/topic/SweoIG/TaskForces/CommunityProjects/LinkingOpenData site for some nice examples of such datasets). You yourself mentioned microformats+GRDDL or RDFa, thanks for that! RDF/XML is only syntax; what counts is the RDF model…
• have SW applications without large (OWL) ontologies. Use those only if necessary (and sometimes they are), but you are a perfectly ok Semantic Web citizen if you do not use any of those at all, or use only very small portions of OWL! Eric Miller said at some point that this is like a menu in a fancy restaurant: you are not supposed to consume the entire menu to be a good customer, just pick what you need and like…

Sure, there were lots of messaging mistakes around these issues, the SW community was not all that great in getting its messaging right. Stuff happens; but I think we are in a much better shape in that respect than we were.

It is worth checking out the SW use case and case study collections: http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/sweo/public/UseCases, as example for real-life SW use. Sure, more would be better (and there are more around, just not necessarily on that list), but it gives some ideas of where things are used. The list deliberately avoided academic examples, by the way…

Thanks for your post

Sincerely

Ivan