Photo Courtesy: Flickr/Vironevaeh

As we get ready to celebrate the July 4 holiday here in the States, there’s a lot to cheer for about how the Semantic Web can be a force for good when it comes to creating an informed and empowered populace upon which democracy depends. Examples of this include the work being done by the Tetherless World Constellation at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute to translate open government datasets into RDF and create applications using linked government data (read more here); and work by the Sunlight Foundation, which does things such as make semantic information in its OpenCongress wiki available via an API with the help of the Semantic MediaWiki extension.

The departure of Vivek Kundra as federal CIO that takes effect in August  – together with the planned funding cuts to e-government initiatives, such as the Data.gov open data effort –  may take its toll on the data that’s available to Semantic Web initiatives at the federal level. On the other hand, states themselves are plowing ahead, most recently with the launch of the State of Illinois Open Data site that’s built on Socrata’s platform. Socrata supports a number of different formats for developers, RDF among them, with its Open API. Cities won’t be left out of the mix, either, with New York, San Francisco, and Chicago, to name a few, pursuing this agenda.

But let’s take a moment to look beyond government data.

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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!

There’s a whole lot of privacy discussion going on at the federal level, with the Federal Trade Commission proposing a Do Not Track browser option. The idea is that consumers could limit cookies or other sniffers that open the door to tracking their browsing behavior for the purpose of delivering online ads. It’s the do-not-follow equivalent to the Do Not Call list.

Is that good news for the semantic web advertising space? Peer39 CEO Andy Ellenthal thinks so. “As it relates specifically to Peer39 it certainly raises the visibility of non-cookie based targeting solutions like we provide,” he says. That said, however, he’s hopeful the powers-that-be proceed with caution. “The augmentation of highly contextualized or categorized data in addition to audience data is an incredibly effective combination, so it’s our hope from an industry perspective that the marketplace and industry and Congress deals with this in an appropriate manner, and not just react to limited amounts of information, because the reality is the audience-data providers do add a tremendous amount of value to the publishes and to the buyers.”

Agreeing with that viewpoint is Raleigh Harbour, SVP of Business Development at the Rubicon Project, Peer39’s latest partner. The Rubicon Project and its technology services online content publishers, connecting them to its partners in demand channels, such as ad networks, exchanges, and DSPs, with pricing data to appropriately price impressions and audience data to make those impressions more valuable. “There are good ways and right ways to do things when it comes to targeting [to make ads more relevant for the user] and wrong ways,” he says. “We’re working towards putting in place the right structure, process and frameworks…to make this a value exchange.” And, he adds, he hopes the FTC and advocacy groups are thoughtful as they contemplate their options, “so as not to hinder a huge part of e-commerce and our economy.”

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Peer39: Interview with Amiad Solomon

Founded in 2006 by an innovative group of scientists and engineers, Peer39 was voted by MIT’s Technology Review as one of the Top Ten Web Startups to Watch in 2008.  Semantic Universe editor Tony Shaw recently spoke with Founder and CEO Amiad Solomon about the company’s innovations, the FTC and what we may expect in the future.

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