Mission Creek

Here is a fascinating exchange between a Google executive and one of the thought leaders, and founders of the internet (no, not Al Gore) Tim Berners-Lee.  Many thought leaders feel the next step of the web is to use Artificial Intelligence to search the web and categorize information through a universal medium for information exchange by putting documents with computer-processable meaning (semantics) on a single standard.  This notion would rely on standardized tagging to parse the data and direct the process (this is a very simplified summary).

I think this Google representative has a very valid read.  In essence, his argument is that the tagging is only good as the tag- which is completely subjective. The cynic would also say that the a universal standard would make it easier for search to be completed by competitors.

from cnet.com 

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“What I get a lot is: ‘Why are you against the Semantic Web?’ I am not against the Semantic Web. But from Google’s point of view, there are a few things you need to overcome, incompetence being the first,” Norvig said. Norvig clarified that it was not Berners-Lee or his group that he was referring to as incompetent, but the general user.

“We deal with millions of Web masters who can’t configure a server, can’t write HTML. It’s hard for them to go to the next step. The second problem is competition. Some commercial providers say, ‘I’m the leader. Why should I standardize?’ The third problem is one of deception. We deal every day with people who try to rank higher in the results and then try to sell someone Viagra when that’s not what they are looking for. With less human oversight with the Semantic Web, we are worried about it being easier to be deceptive,” Norvig said.

“While you own the data that’s fine, but when somebody breaks and says, ‘If you use our enterprise system, we will have all your data in RDF. We care because we’ve got the best database.’ That is much more powerful,” Berners-Lee said. To illustrate his stance, he used the example of bookstores initially withholding information on stock levels and purchase price but then breaking them as others did.

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full story here