Where is the Puck?

Tim Berners-Lee, the man who invented the World Wide Web twenty years ago, is now reinventing it! He calls the new web “LINKED DATA” and it will do to data what the Web did for documents such as words, pictures, video. According to Tim Berners-Lee, there will be three rules of the new web:

1) We will use HTTP names not only for documents, but also for people, products, events, and concepts
2) The web will be able to give back IMPORTANT information
3) Data will be RELATED, relationships will also have HTTP name

In order for this to happen, people need to produce and demand RAW DATA, and the web will be connecting all data in a meaningful way. Mr. Berners-Lee suggests everyone to demand “raw data now” from data producers such as governments, businesses, research laboratories, individuals. Once this happens, one will be able to search the web with the REAL questions like: “What proteins are involved in signal transduction AND are related to pyramidal neurons?”

In his speech for TED, Mr. Berners-Lee did not comment on the issues such as data privacy and security. See this video, and also my earlier post on semantic web / Web 3.0.