Search optimization - the semantic web

Humans are capable of using the Web to carry out tasks such as finding the closest pizza place open after midnight, selecting and ordering a book on Amazon, and searching for a low price for a digital camera. However, a computer cannot accomplish all of these tasks without human direction, because web pages are designed to be read by people, not machines. The semantic web is a vision of information that is understandable by computers. The goal is for computers to perform more of the tedious work involved in finding, combining, and acting upon information on the web.

 In 1999 Tim Berners-Lee first stated a vision of the semantic web like this:

I have a dream for the Web [in which computers] become capable of analyzing all the data on the Web – the content, links, and transactions between people and computers. A ‘Semantic Web’, which should make this possible, has yet to emerge, but when it does, the day-to-day mechanisms of trade, bureaucracy and our daily lives will be handled by machines talking to machines. The ‘intelligent agents’ people have touted for ages will finally materialize.

The Semantic Web is a vision for the future of the Web in which information is given explicit meaning, making it easier for machines to automatically process and integrate information available on the Web. Web Ontology Language

Tom Fox
Louisville, Kentucky
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