December 23, 2020: in spite of the catastrophic forecasts of some years ago, the temperature of the earth has only increased half a degree, but in the city, the youngest children have never seen snow. The Smith family is awaiting the delivery of their children’s gifts, ordered as always on Amazon.

In some hours, the family must leave to spend Christmas with the grandparents, but the gifts have still not arrived. Only ten years ago this would have been a complicated situation—made worse by the risk of having to explain the missed arrival of Santa Claus. Today, such a problem is easily resolved thanks to the revolutionary mass adoption of the Semantic Web, which happened some time ago.

Instead of waiting at home for the packages to arrive, Mrs. Smith can modify her current online profile in her personal data locker, a complete archive that guards all personal data, managed directly by the individual. By fostering a collaborative environment, the Semantic Web has dismantled the countless customer archives and systems for the management of shipments, unique for each courier: in 2020, new shipment information catches up with the couriers in real time, and the gifts could instead be delivered to the grandparents’ address. The change of shipping address doesn’t require a telephone call to the customer, nor further modification of shipping procedures.

This small example is just one of the revolutionary scenarios used by this year’s keynote speaker at SemTech, David Siegel, author of “Pull: The Power of the Semantic Web to Transform Your Business,” to explain in practical terms the scale of the changes we can expect from the Semantic Web. According to Siegel’s brave vision, in the new world of the Semantic Web, it will be individuals and consumers who will become the primary point of reference for the market, and therefore it will substantially change each linked aspect of the information.

It will not be necessary to duplicate the data in every database of the organizations and companies in every sector in which we are operating or doing business (for example, think about the personal data necessary for login forms), solely to satisfy the needs of an antiquated, disconnected system. According to Siegel, in the era of the Semantic Web, it will fall to individuals to exactly define the rules of the game, creating a mechanism—a “pull” —so that suppliers of products and services will have the responsibility to retrieve information about its customers (instead of vice versa.) A mechanism that, according to some estimates, will help save thousands of billions of dollars every year.

In the subsequent debate following his presentation, David Siegel was not without critics. There are those who accused him of not estimating the technical aspects of such a model (for example, where will this mysterious personal data locker reside, how will we ensure it is securely managed?, etc.)
Personally, I found Siegel’s book and presentation very interesting. If we really want the new era of the Web to arise, it is necessary to initially explain the concrete advantages for consumers. Surely not everything will be developed as Siegel predicts, but his theory has merit, because it makes the motives and utilization of the Semantic Web more clear.

In the second keynote of the day, David Recordon from Facebook introduced the “Open Graph protocol” initiative. Released by the company some weeks ago, this initiative has opened an important view of what our online future could be. Through this new protocol, created by Facebook but available to all of its users, every web page will have the possibility to integrate itself in the social graph of Facebook through a simple copy and paste of code. This opens the door, for example, to the development of applications that automatically take into account each user’s social network.

For example, think about the personalization of search rankings for a classic site dedicated to restaurants or movies, according to the preferences of our friends who have already had eaten in the restaurant or who have already seen the movie. Although the first applications of this protocol already exist, the real revolution will happen in the coming years, and we can bet that new applications will know how to fully take advantage of this innovation.

Now that SemTech has drawn to a close, to give a combined vision of the current state of the industry, as well as other perspectives on the sector, I want to briefly point to the forecasts and data that emerged from the panel dedicated to investments and acquisitions in the field. In the last 12 months, we have seen a significant acceleration of activity. We have seen acquisitions of semantic technology companies from larger organizations or from new companies, plus a significant and increasing number of investments in start ups, especially in the areas of sentiment analysis, semantic publishing and semantic advertising. Therefore, it is clear that the field enjoys optimal health and we will continue to have interesting developments in the near future (stay tuned).

All in all, it has been another positive event. A larger participation of big companies like Procter & Gamble, Chevron, Lockheed Martin, CNN, etc, have given greater validity to the conference, confirming the business value of the semantic technology. The attention of some big names, from Facebook to Google, Apple to The New York Times, strengthens the vision of a Web and its consumer applications that will be diverse and innovative, even if not completely defined. If the recent increase in media interest is any indication (demonstrated by a significant increase in the number of articles dedicated to semantic technology in recent months), we can believe that the best is yet to come, and I really hope that I will be talking about it in the 2011 edition.

I think it’s really interesting to think about some of the numbers pointed out in this article. To know that 34% of US adults use social media to comment and share their opinions about companies, brands and products is really surprising: if they ever asked me to estimate this percentage, I would have never guessed more than 10% (and probably less). If they were talking about young people or teenagers it would be normal, but the survey says that this is diffused also for users between 34 and 54 years old.

It also surprised me that so many are posting positive comments. I would have expected that many people would use social media as a tool to vent their dissatisfactions and complaints about products and services that are not providing the expected result. Obviously the social side of internet is also bringing out people’s  good intentions (not just the bad :-), so it becomes a pleasure to recommend something we liked to others.

For those of us working in technology and information management, these numbers are really important. They demonstrate how necessary it is for companies to analyze the social content of the internet to know what users and consumers think about their products or services. To have access to this information is really easy (they are free and usually open source), but being able to process them in an efficient and useful way is extremely difficult: this is a perfect task for semantic technology–it cannot make miracles, but it allows you to target relevant information in a more efficient way than other technologies.

The idol (and surprise) of the first day of the Semantic Technology Conference in San Francisco has a very different profile than what you may expect, at least at an event that brings together some of the most brilliant minds from one of the more innovative sectors in the world of software. His name is Landon Donovan, a professional soccer player, and he was the only one who has been able to successfully unite all of the participants, after just 90 minutes, by making the goal that qualified the United States for the next stage of the World Cup. This unforeseen fortune has thus transformed the hundreds of geeks that fill the hall of the Hilton before the start of the conference, into a crowd of excited fans in a stadium.

Apart from Donovan, the first day of SemTech was surely in line with expectations. As the organizers promised, the presentations  have been concentrated on the business rather than the purely technological aspects. Compared to last year’s conference, the topics have been more about case studies, ROI and the real needs of customers.

Among the presentations of this full program, I found of particular interest the series dedicated to the application of semantic technology to marketing. In a market of consumers who are increasingly  influenced by opinions expressed online (websites, blogs or forums), by now it has become strategic for all businesses to institute mechanisms for real-time monitoring. By analyzing these sources, it is possible to precisely identify opinions, sentiment and new trends that can shift the competitive landscape.

Considering the immense quantities of available data and information to analyze daily, an effective solution requires a system that can process content automatically and reliably. Semantic technology can help, thanks to its capacity to understand the significance of words and their relation to expressed concepts.

The panel, including some of the main vendors in this very crowded sector, has rightly discussed the problems of complexity in fully realizing a semantic system and the often exaggerated expectations by companies new to the sector. The discussion of the necessity to integrate raw data (for example, that it measures sentiment regarding product features, extracted automatically), as well as analysis made by specialized consultants, has been particularly enlightening. Right now, the match is tied on this particular topic and we will probably still see some adjustments before these listening systems will be fully implemented in the marketplace.

A second very interesting presentation was that of SalesForce (www.salesforce.com). The company presented a semantic system that, through analysis of content added by employees, can create maps that summarize in real time those employees’ abilities and interests. This knowledge map is used to allow everyone who is looking for a particular set of skills to be able to query the system and easily retrieve the profiles of employees best suited to manage a particular data problem. This type of instrument can be very useful for companies with employees in diverse geographical locations, but also in particular situations that require fast access to unique or less common skills, as well as other diverse skills and interests that are not directly related to an employee’s current responsibilities.

The final note for the day is dedicated to an interesting online application (www.tripit.com) that provides a very useful tool for travellers—one that allows you to easily create a travel itinerary with all the useful information you need, as well as an electronic copy for your trip. For a simpler, more transparent user experience, Tripit uses semantic technology to personalize relevant information inside an email to confirm a travel reservation (for example, dates, location, name of hotel, etc.). The details automatically load into the email, including logistical information like the weather forecast, maps of the area, etc. And finally, the itineraries are available via the web or mobile (which is especially useful when travelling), allowing the traveller to avoid having to keep track of paper copies of reservations or confirmation numbers.

This year’s edition of the Semantic Technology conference has the clear objective to prove, to a still partially skeptical market, that semantic technologies and the broader semantic web are for real, and that they can significantly contribute to create business value to organizations in many different industries. Just by looking at the comprehensive agenda, organized very smartly in tracks covering specific topics and areas of applications, I was pleased to realize that speeches and panels, instead of focusing on standard and technical aspects like in past years, will cover concrete business applications that are easy to understand, even for people who have never written a line of code.

Considering these points, and last but not least, the fact that the event is in San Francisco (apologies to San Jose…), I am really looking forward to the conference to start, also because the event represents a unique opportunity to meet entrepreneurs, analysts and investors to understand whether their mood and vision on the future of the sector has changed after the difficult recession of the last 18 months. Among the long list of presentations, I am particularly interested in the following:

• David Siegel (keynote scheduled for Wednesday at 8.30), the author of what I believe is the most enlighting book (titled “Pull”) on the potential of the Semantic Web. If you haven’t read the book yet, I really would suggest that you buy it because you won’t be able to find any other books or papers that can present a list of clear, concrete, and comprehensible case studies and thoughts on the revolution that is going to impact not only the way of doing business in many sectors but also our normal way of living. David Siegel thinks, and I agree with him on many points, that this big change is almost here and will be triggered by the more effective and intelligent way to handle the information that surrounds us enabled by Semantic Technologies.
• David Recordon, product manager of Facebook’s open graph, will instead introduce, hopefully without too much emphasis and exaggeration, the practical and concrete potential of a tool that could be at the core of a new wave of really innovative applications, if we consider, of course, only the positive aspects of this not so hidden control on our online experience. The possibility to leverage the willingness of consumers to share their preference to their network of friends has, I believe, a strong potential to improve the online and offline experience of individuals. What I hope is that this presentation will go beyond the propaganda of claiming that Facebook has now replaced Google as the real reference point of the Internet, and communicate to the audience the vision and the concrete value that Facebook open graph can bring to developers and entrepreneurs in the industry.
• Finally, I think that the whole track of presentations on marketing and advertising will be particularly interesting, mainly because I think that these are the areas that will probably be impacted first by a mass adoption of semantic technologies. (Disclosure: Expert System will present twice, once covering semantic advertising and a second time covering mobile.)

Personally, I will make a speech on Wednesday at 10.15 inside a panel dedicated to the application of semantic technologies to publishing. I find fascinating, and at the same time particularly confusing, the debate in this sector. On one side, you have the traditional players that are under a great deal of pressure to try to retake a leadership position, and financial profitability, after having allowed Google to almost destroy their business model and weaken significantly their competitive position. On the other side, you have the new online only players, like the Huffington Post, that are forced by their somehow unexpected success to continue to innovate to ensure they can continue to offer a unique a difference experience to their readers. Both sides see semantic technologies as strategic because these technologies, and the applications deriving from them, can help them to increase revenue by improving the user experience and providing a more effective way to serve advertising, and to reduce costs by automating the work of content creators in order to let them focus on the most valuable part of their job (creating content) instead of wasting time in low value activities like manually tagging the content to make it easier to search and access by the user.

If you are in San Francisco this week, don’t forget to visit Expert System’s booth (#207) or to follow us on this blog or on twitter @scagliarini and @brookeaker.

Last week I organized “Semantic Web Makes for Business Intelligence 2.0”, a meetup event for the CT Semantic Web Meetup Group (Ah yes, I funded the Connecticut Semantic Web Group last April. The reason was simple: we had the NYC and Boston version of these groups but didn’t have one of them in CT. So how about having some meetups right here in CT to learn, trade stories and promote the Semantic Web / Web 3.0 right here?). And this week I will take part in an other Semantic Web event which seems very interesting and was scheduled as part of Internet Week NY 2010: “Building NLP Semantic Web Applications for Financial Services“.

You’ll find all the details here. But what’s the point? This is sea-change technology and early adopters are in corporate communities. The technology is here now and coming on fast. Come to these meetups so you and your company are out in front and not left behind.