Cait O’Riordan recently explained the many changes to the BBC Sport Website. O’Riordan writes, “This redesign is the first major launch of many this year as we get ready to cover the Olympic Games this summer. We are working on some really exciting developments, which will be showcased on the new BBC Sport website. This redesign has concentrated on doing four main things: (1) Creating a fresh website that better showcases the range of content we offer. (2) Prominent promotion of our fantastic live coverage from across the BBC. (3) Making it easier for our users to talk about our sport coverage. (4) Making it faster for our users to find our great content. We have tried to do this in a way that makes the site easier to use for the millions of people from across the UK and around the world who use the site every week and are confident it will. But we know that, initially at least, the site will take a bit of getting used to.” Read more

Semantic Tech & Business Conference Returns to San Francisco

Semantic Tech & Business Conference returns to San Francisco in June! Join us from June 3-7 for complete coverage of Big Data, Linked Data, Extreme Information Management, and Semantic Web. From breakthrough approaches to solving business problems to the big data implications of fast–evolving technologies, SemTechBiz provides you with an unparalleled interactive experience and delivers tangible business value. We're offering a special early rate when you register by February 17. Sign up now!

Jake Berger recently compared the developing Digital Public Space project to an ancient temple called the Metroon. He writes, “Around 500 BC in the Ancient Greek city-state of Athens the state archive was housed in a building called the Metroon, or ‘mother building’. This temple, dedicated to the goddess Demeter, was filled with papers relating to the day-to-day civic, legal, commercial and cultural life of its citizens. The Metroon was open to every citizen, and all were entitled both to read and to make copies of anything held there, giving them a level of access to the building blocks of their society that is unrivalled in the modern age despite our Freedom of Information laws and open data initiatives.” Read more

The first Semantic Technology and Business Conference in the United Kingdom (#semtechbiz) wrapped up in London this week, and there are some themes that emerged from the presentations and networking conversations.

We heard a lot about the benefits of using Semantic Technology solutions. There were strong case studies and experiences shared, and we will be diving deeper into some of these in coming weeks here at SemanticWeb.com.  Sometimes these solutions were in place of — and sometimes in conjunction with — RDBMS databases, spreadsheets, XML files, and other data management systems.  While there was a nice diversity of companies, industries, and products represented, there seemed to be consensus around some of the following benefits of using Semantic Tech for business applications:

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I hate to even mention how quickly Summer is passing, but as we head into August, it’s time to start making plans for the busy Fall event season. September is particularly full of Semantic Tech events.

September 14, in New York City, the Semantic Web Media Summit will take place. A half-day meeting focused on uses of Semantic Web in media, advertising, and publishing, the event is produced by SemanticWeb.com, Lotico.com and our parent company, MediaBistro. With a keynote by Mike Dunn, CTO of Hearst Interactive, and contributions from a stellar group of presenters, the program promises to be a must-attend event for anyone in the New York area interested in how Semantic Technology is changing the media world.  OpenAmplify is sponsoring the conference.

September 21-23, DC-2011, the eleventh International Conference on Dublin Core and Metadata Applications, will take place at the National Library of the Netherlands in The Hague.

Also on Sept. 21, the folks at Schema.org are planning a workshop in Silicon Valley. There are still few details available about this event.

September 26-27, The London Semantic Technology and Business Conference (#SemTechBiz) takes place at the Hotel Russell. This two-day executive conference is designed for business and technology executives who need to learn what semantic technologies are and how to take advantage of semantics in their enterprise and web-based systems. Attendees will further their technical understanding in introductory sessions and learn from the Keynote speakers John O’Donovan (Press Association), Martin Hepp (Hepp Research), Steve Harris (Garlik), and Dennis E. Wisnosky, U.S. Department of Defense.

On Monday, June 20, a group of Semantic thought leaders from around the globe met with their host and colleague, Paul Miller, for the seventh installment of the Semantic Link, a monthly podcast covering the world of Semantic Technologies. This episode includes a discussion about schema.org and a review of some of the goings-on at the recent SemTech: Semantic Technology Conference. Read more

There are three trends that I observed at SemTech 2011 in San Francisco last week.  First was the increased role of native XML databases used in combination with RDF data stores.  Second was the many natural-language processing tools and vendors at the conference.  And third was the role of semantic annotations and standards directly in web content.  I think these trends are related.

One of the keynote presentations at the SemTech 2011 conference was done by the BBC.  They presented their core architecture for managing web content as having two main components: a native XML database(MarkLogic)  for content and a RDF triple store for “metadata.”  These tools were at the core of their architecture for their web sites.

Another presentation was done by the Mayo Clinic.  They also are using MarkLogic for web content and are also using semantic web technologies.  Their diagrams show that there are many ways for these systems to interact.

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The opening keynote sessions at SemTech this week made one thing abundantly clear: Semantic technology is for business, and it’s time to start putting it in practice there.

“Semantics is a game changer in the B-to-C model,” said Bill Guinn, CTO Product Enablers, Amdocs Product Business Unit. The company’s focus is on delivering customer care and experience systems in the telco space, but Guinn’s address was centered on “applying semantics in any situation that involves complex and recurring relationships between business and consumers,” with the aim of improving revenue, reducing costs, and retaining customers.

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The web is ablaze with chatter from this week’s Semantic Technology Conference. One article states, “That semantic technologies are no longer purely niche is proven not only by the increasing number of diverse companies present, and by the rich number of case studies that crowd the agenda (pharmaceutical and financial markets for now are the leaders) but also by the fact that the San Francisco event is just one of three editions of the conference this year. The first European edition will be held in London in September, followed by the Washington D.C. event in October, focusing on applications devoted to government organizations.” Read more

According to a recent article, “The BBC’s R&D department unveiled an interesting take on the traditional electronic programming guide (EPG) this week that allows viewers to search for people, places and things across tens of thousands of movies and TV show episodes. Channelography is based on captions of close to 170,000 pieces of programming shown across the BBC’s nine U.K.-wide TV networks, which can be searched for close to 100,000 data entities.” Read more

We often report on applications of linked data in government, health care, commerce, and the financial sector. But linked data has permeated much further than that. In a recent article, David De Roure of Nature.com writes about linked data and music. De Roure begins, “It’s a measure of the buzz in the Music and Linked Data world that we just had two workshops in a row – one leaning toward academia and the other industry. One of the special things about the Music Linked Data workshop on Thursday was the spectrum of attendees – from musicologist to linked data geek, and from academic to library to not-for-profit and industry. It’s unusual and important to get that set of guests to the party – kudos to David Bretherton and colleagues for linking this all together, and to JISC for hosting in London.” Read more