The Year Is 2009...

We're not that far. . . In 2002, Paul Ford wrote an amazing piece predicting what the world would look like in 2009. Well, we're almost there. Ford thought about a "Semantic Web scenario," one which had a short feature from a business magazine published in 2009. While Amazon and Ebay both worked as virtual marketplaces (they outsourced as much inventory as possible) by bringing together buyers and sellers while taking a cut of every transaction, Google focused on the emerging Semantic Web.

This is how Ford explains the SemWeb, which is one of the most concise I've seen to date.

So what's the Semantic Web? At its heart, it's just a way to describe things in a way that a computer can “understand.” Of course, what's going on is not understanding, but logic, like you learn in high school:

If A is a friend of B, then B is a friend of A.

Jim has a friend named Paul.

Therefore, Paul has a friend named Jim.

Jim has a friend named Paul.

Therefore, Paul has a friend named Jim.

Of course, it's much more than just A's and B's. But the idea that Google will eventually integrate the SemWeb into its applications is exciting. And for an article that was written back in 2002 with such clarity, it's a highly engaging read.