Alexander Korth
SemanticWeb.com Contributor

ReadWriteWeb

In a previous article, we discussed the Web of data, which is about inter-linking open data sets and, thus, turning them into machine-accessible structured data. In this post, we’ll draw a picture of how the emerging social Web could serve as a Web of identities, which is essentially a people-data version of the Web of data.

W3C’s Linking Open Data (LOD) project has gotten quite a bit of attention for the good job it does with the Web of data. Currently, all participating data sets are accessible free of charge and can be used without constraints. The project focuses on growth for now. In an email, Chris Bizer hinted that a payment model to charge for particular content may come in future.

The LOD approach is very good for static and encyclopedic knowledge, but what about accessing our personal data? Technically, modeling our identity, profile data, social graph, groups, activity stream, assets, and other kinds of personal data is straightforward. But empowering machines to access this data could present challenges to the LOD approach, because it comes with all sorts of constraints and peculiarities, such as privacy and data volatility. …

This is where the social Web can help.
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