The W3C has launched a new Government Linked Data Working Group. According to the W3C, the mission of the new group “is to provide standards and other information which help governments around the world publish their data as effective and usable Linked Data using Semantic Web technologies… In addition, W3C renewed today the eGovernment Interest Group, a forum for building and strengthening the community of people who use or promote the use of W3C technologies to improve Government. That group identifies and discusses essential areas of technology and related policy issues.” Read more

A recent article from Guardian.co.uk takes a look at how their data journalists breakdown datasets to generate interesting stories. The process is similar to how datasets are utilized on Data.gov and similar open government sites: “Before a dataset results in a data journalism story, there’s a whole process of sifting and finessing and generally sorting the data out. The split is roughly 70% tidying up the data, 30% doing the fun stuff of visualising and presenting it. So, how do we get through that 70%?” Read more

Last year, former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown gave a 90-second elevator pitch for the Semantic Web.  Granted, it started about four minutes into a 32-minute long speech. This speech, given March 22, 2010, was long before our original challenge went out, but this discovery was simply too fun to not include it here. Obviously, it was not an official submission.

The Pitch

We are still collecting elevator pitches from our readers in an attempt to answer the question “What is the Semantic Web?” If you think you have a pitch in you, check out the original challenge.

Thanks to Bernadette Hyland, CEO of Talis, Inc., and regular participant in the SemanticLink podcasts for finding and sharing this!