On Friday, May 11, a group of Semantic Technology thought leaders from around the globe met with their host and colleague, Paul Miller, for the latest installment of the Semantic Link, a monthly podcast covering the world of Semantic Technologies. This episode includes a discussion about Semantics in the Financial Services Industry, and “the Linkers” were joined by special guest, Lee Feigenbaum, VP Marketing & Technology at Cambridge Semantics. Lee shared insights gained over many years working in the semantic technology field and with numerous customers in the financial services industry.
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SemTechBiz is Less Than 2 Weeks Away

The Semantic Tech & Business Conference (SemTechBiz) is coming to San Francisco on June 3-7! Join us for case studies, innovative panels, tutorials, and keynotes that will provide you with practical advice, hands-on guidance, and breakthrough approaches to solving business problems with semantic technology. Passes go up $200 at the door. Sign up now and save !

On Friday, April 13, a group of Semantic thought leaders from around the globe met with their host and colleague, Paul Miller, for the latest installment of the Semantic Link, a monthly podcast covering the world of Semantic Technologies. This episode includes a discussion about various approaches to building semantic systems, and “the Linkers” were joined by special guest, Daniel Tunkelang, Principal Data Scientist, LinkedIn. Daniel — who will deliver a keynote address at the June Semantic Technology & Business Conference — shared insights gained over many years working at LinkedIn, Endeca, and Google, and IBM among others.
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Paul Miller recently discussed why many semantic search startups are failing to compete with Google, also noting a few interesting exceptions. He writes, “In recent weeks, I’ve received a flurry of information on partial alternatives to Google’s market-dominating search engine. Most appear useful in their own niche, but I doubt even their creators would be surprised to learn that none tempt me to change my Google-powered default search behaviour. Far more damaging for their prospects, any hope they had of attracting my occasional use is dashed by the very way that they seem to work. They may excel in certain verticals, or in particular types of search, but most make the unfortunate mistake of expecting me to mould my behaviour to them.” Read more

Paul Miller recently responded to an assertion that Big Data tools trump the knowledge and experience of Data Scientists. He writes, “Data scientists are an increasingly capable bunch, and the tools at their disposal sometimes appear almost magical in their capability to derive insight. Competitions such as those run by Kaggle (more on them in a moment) clearly show that an aptitude for numbers and analysis can deliver some remarkable results, even when that analysis is being undertaken by individuals who lack specific domain expertise. But to suggest that simply ‘letting the numbers speak for themselves’ is an effective way to make real decisions is, quite simply, bonkers.” Read more

Paul Miller recently had a conversation with Kasabi CTO Leigh Dodds. According to Miller, “Kasabi sees its role very much as an enabler of aggregation. Rather than focusing, as some data markets do, on simply providing access to data sets, Kasabi is betting on the power of being able to combine and recombine data in compelling new ways. Hidden under the hood, Talis’ platform technology leverages the potential of the Semantic Web to make these connections possible.” Read more

On Friday, February 10, a group of Semantic thought leaders from around the globe met with their host and colleague, Paul Miller, for the latest installment of the Semantic Link, a monthly podcast covering the world of Semantic Technologies. This episode includes a discussion about data; specifically, the recently announced “wikidata” project with special guest, Denny Vrandecic.
At the recent SemTechBiz Berlin conference, Denny presented a talk titled, “Wikidata: The Next Big Thing for Wikipedia.” As evidenced in the “Wow’s” expressed by the panelists in this month’s podcast call, this is indeed a big deal for Wikipedia and for Semantic Web. Read more

After December’s episode of the Semantic Link, we asked for your thoughts on both the topics we should cover, and the ways in which you would like to interact with the podcast. You spoke, very clearly asking for an opportunity to pose questions for the team to answer during recordings. This is that opportunity.

February’s episode of the show will be recorded this Friday, 10 February, and we’re joined by a guest with a lot to contribute during our conversation.

There is growing interest in publishing, sharing and using data on the Web. The Semantic Web’s Linked Data effort is clearly one approach to this, but there are others. At Wolfram Alpha, for example, founder Stephen Wolfram suggests that a new Top Level Domain (TLD) for data will make data easier to find on the web. And inside the Wikimedia Foundation (the home of Wikipedia), a new WikiData project is rapidly taking shape.

WikiData project director, Denny Vrandecic, joins us to share his perspectives on these and other approaches to the space.

And now over to all of you. Please use the comments facility below, to share your perspectives on the question, or to submit your comments and questions for Denny and the regular gang to consider. Then tune in the week of 13 February to hear the result!

On Friday, January 13, a group of Semantic thought leaders from around the globe met with their host and colleague, Paul Miller, for the latest installment of the Semantic Link, a monthly podcast covering the world of Semantic Technologies. This episode includes a discussion about user interface and user experience (UI/UX) design, and “the Linkers” were joined by special guest, Nova Spivack.
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It cannot be denied that Stephen Wolfram knows data. As the person behind Mathematica and Wolfram|Alpha, he has been working with data — and the computation of that data — for a long time. As he said in his blog yesterday, “In building Wolfram|Alpha, we’ve absorbed an immense amount of data, across a huge number of domains.  But—perhaps surprisingly—almost none of it has come in any direct way from the visible internet. Instead, it’s mostly from a complicated patchwork of data files and feeds and database dumps.”

The main topic of Wolfram’s post is a proposal about the form and placement of raw data on the internet. In the post, he proposes that .data be created as a new generic Top-Level Domain (gTLD) to hold data in a “parallel construct.”

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This month, we present the twelfth Podcast episode in our monthly series of discussions with Semantic Web thought leaders from around the globe. In this episode, we reflect on the last year and make some predictions for 2012.

We also are making a request below for input from you, our audience, in the form of two poll questions. Please take a moment to let us know what you think! Read more