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Today’s show guest, Mike Darnell, explains why companies need to prepare to market on the semantic web.

Once in a while humanity comes up with a discovery, product or service, that influences our daily reality to such a degree it becomes impossible for us to envision the world without them. Cell phones, the Web, Google and “Dancing with the Stars”, are just a few such revelations that I myself have come to view as being impossible-to-live-without.

It’s worth noting that as the tools available to inventors and entrepreneurs become ever more powerful the process of innovation itself is speeding up, daily increasing the number of innovations we “just-can’t imagine life without”.

Big changes change everything

Changes that have this type of impact on the way Humanity goes about its business always affect the way humanity does business as well. Indeed all the innovations I mentioned earlier (including “Danceing with the Stars”) have had a profound influence on the commercial aspects of our lives.

Change powers evolution

Changes of this magnitude require us to evolve both as customers and as business owners and in any case eventually most of us have no choice but to incorporate the change into our daily routine. We learn how to leverage the change in our favor as consumers, and as business people we investigate how best to monetize it. Regardless of which side of the commercial equation we’re on, evolution is a survival imperative and failure to adapt is bound to have grave consequences…

In my humble opinion the ascent of the Semantic Web is a change of this magnitude and it’s happening all around us right about NOW.

What is the Semantic Web?

Before I continue and explain some of the ways I believe you can prepare to benefit from the ascent of the Semantic Web, it’s important to explain what exactly the Semantic Web is. The way I see it, understanding something tends to be beneficial to profiting from it…

The Semantic Web – a short intro:

In order to understand the meaning of the Semantic Web one must first embrace two concepts – totality and accessibility:

Totality – to what extent are things defined online

The Semantic Web is a web of data where everything is defined and linked to anything with which it has an association. In this Web anything conceivable must be represented and relevantly associated.

Accessibility – to what extent is the Web accessible to computers

The Semantic Web is a web of data perfectly accessible by machines. It is a Web that computers are able to interact with, interpret and utilize autonomously – without the need for any human intervention.

Need clarifications?

If the previous definitions seem a tad vague to you, I suggest you check out the following textbook example that illuminates the difference between the “traditional” web and the Semantic web, by comparing how an identical paradigm, planning a vacation in Scottsdale AZ, might be resolved in either environment:

The vacation plan paradigm – as solved on the Traditional web:

If you’re reading this chances are you’ve already used the Web as a travel aid at least once and it’s pretty safe to assume that if you had to arrange a vacation in Scottsdale AZ you’d probably do some or all of the following:

• Run a quick Google search to find resources for learning details about Scottsdale.
• Check Google maps to find out where Scottsdale is and get directions.
• Search http://Expedia.com for deals on your Scottsdale bound transportation.
• Check out http://Upcoming.Yahoo.com to discover what you can do in Scottsdale once you get there.
• Send messages to your Myspace, Facebook, Twitter buddies to see if anyone is planning to be in Scottsdale while you’re there and might want to hang-out together.

I’ve probably left out an activity or two, but you get my gist. Planning a trip on the traditional web requires a fair deal of man-powered research and visiting quite a few disparate web services in order to come up with a complete and satisfying agenda. Of course once your research is done all you have to do is make all your reservations, deal with all the payments, make sure all the paperwork gets done properly, handle the filing…

The vacation plan paradigm – as solved on the Semantic web:

Planning a vacation on the Semantic Web starts at a point where it is a given that all the data relating to you, a vacation-prone-individual, and all the data relating to your destination, sunny Scottsdale, is already available online in a format legible by computers. In this type of environment creating the perfect Scottsdale trip for you is simply a matter of generating a computer optimized comparison between your data and Scottsdale’s:

• Your transportation and accommodations are arranged automatically after a quick analysis of your financial capabilities, personal preferences, and the travel and accommodation options available.
• Your activities and meals are all pre-planned.  Your agenda in Scottsdale has been computer-generated based on analysis of how your tastes in food and entertainment align with what Scottsdale has to offer. You have front row seats to hear Mastodon at the Martini Ranch
• Alerts have been sent out to all your friends and social contacts notifying them of your planned itinerary. An old college flame has responded and offered to join you for an afternoon of art at the SMoCA.

Planning a trip in a Semantic Web reality becomes a matter of indicating your intent and destination, and then trusting the omniscience of Web with everything else. In a perfect world the result should be an effortlessly generated vacation agenda perfectly coordinated and tailored to your tastes and abilities. 

Why Now?

Understanding the basic difference between the web-that-is and the web-to-be supplies a few clues as to how this change is happening and why it’s happening now:

• The democratization of online publishing in the past few years has done a lot to contribute to the Totality of the web and has without doubt been the key to its unprecedented growth. The Web still has a long way to go before it encompasses everything, but it already contains enough data to allow generating limited Semantic Web experiences, especially in “UGC-rich” fields.

• The ascent of APIs as the de-facto method for structuring inter-service communications is creating an ever increasing degree of Accessibility. Every day now greater swaths of the web are made accessible and “understandable” to automated services.

• Tagging, Natural Language Processing and other forms of hi-tech voodoo are all coming of age around now. Their evolution is having an increasingly positive impact on computers’ ability to “understand” the Web.

How will this affect me?

By now (April 2009) it’s already clear that the next evolution of the Web is right around the corner. The first generation of companies pioneering this field, including Evri, Apture and of course ourselves, have already been active for 2-3 years. This in itself should be enough to convince you that it doesn’t matter whether you call it “Semantic Web”, “Web 3.0” or “Super Duper Web with Sprinkles” you should get your act together and start preparing for it NOW!

Rapid evolution creates opportunity

It’s worth remembering that the transformation we’re experiencing from Web to Semantic Web is a gradual one. Changes of this magnitude always are. Even so I strongly advise against complacency – “gradual” is a relevant term. I don’t remember how long it took for all of us to start using Google but I remember it wasn’t long, and I know that Yahoo and Microsoft are still trying to figure out where they lost us.

Where will the Semantic Web revolution begin?

Although prophecy is dangerous business I think it’s safe to wager that those fields where more has been done to improve the availability of data and its accessibility to computers, are those that will enjoy the boons of the Semantic Web first.

User-generated-content heavy segments like social networking, music and photo sharing sites are some of the first places where it’s already possible to enjoy genuine Semantic Web experiences. In fact our own Headup has already been complimented by blogging heavyweights Robert Scoble and Jeff Pulver for its Twitter boosting capabilities.

Product sites like Amazon are another good place to experience Semantic Web. Their ability to offer products based on their relevance to users’ needs, intentions and social circles, is another Semantic Web early bird, albeit a rather primitive and limited one.

How can I best prepare my business?

The best easy-to-adopt-today tips I can suggest marketers who want to prepare for the Semantic Web are all based on the points I’ve mentioned earlier:

• Be aware of the coming change, keep your ears and eyes open for developments and deepen your understanding by reading blog posts like this one. I personally recommend checking out the excellent repository of Semantic Web articles that’s been published on the ReadWriteWeb blog.
• Tag the widgets you’re marketing comprehensively so that they are readily identifiable by computers. For example: If you’re selling football jerseys make sure to tag your inventory not only with the relevant team names but also with tags defining your merchandise as “clothing”, “shirt”, “jersey” and/or “fan merchandise”. As far as the technical details of “how-to-tag” are concerned I suggest using Microformats if at all possible but linking as described below is shaping up to be a viable option as well.
• Link the widgets you’re marketing meaningfully to assist in there identification. This is especially true for ambiguous terms. For example by linking this instance of the word “Pink” to the last.fm page dedicated to the singer of the same name I’ve effectively removed all possible ambiguity as to which “Pink” I meant. 
• Connect your site to relevant APIs wherever possible. If you deal in real-estate try integrating a map service like Google Maps. Music your thing? Integrate Last.fm or Deezer, etc. A great source for following available APIs and the innovative mashups created with them is ProgrammableWeb.com.

Epilogue

In many cases timing one’s adoption of a new technology can make all the difference. The Goddess of Economics tends to bestow her blessing upon those few nimble early adapters savvy enough to identify and take advantage of the changing marketplace in order to create a unique advantage for themselves and/or their businesses.  Being prepared for the Semantic Web will require you and your business to embrace the coming change. The good news is that if you do it right then this time round it’ll be the machines doing the heavy lifting…

Mike Darnell is the Creative Marketing Director of Headup, a Firefox addon that helps you discover content related to your interests and your friends. Mike blogs at http://blog.headup.com. Tweet him @headup.

Update: Check out these two other excellent articles about the Semantic Web on Mike’s Blog.

Semantic Web Shopping – a “how to” for the immediate future (Part 1)

Semantic Web Shopping – a “how to” for the immediate future (Part 2)