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FUTURE SEO VISTASTHE SEMANTIC WEB &INTERNET OF THINGS
BRIGHTON SEO13TH APRIL 2012
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Blog www.philipsheldrake.com
Meanwhile www.wearemeanwhile.com
LinkedIn /in/philipsheldrake
Twitter @sheldrake
Author, The Business of Influence, Wiley 2011
Book website www.influenceprofessional.com
Philip Sheldrake
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Today:
Improving the visibility of a website or a web page in search
engines' "natural," or un-paid ("organic" or "algorithmic"), search
results. [Wikipedia] For the website owner.
Tomorrow:
Improving the presentation, discoverability, machinability and
usefulness of data, information and knowledge. For all
stakeholders.
Your role, imho
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THE SEMANTIC WEB
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“Web 3.0”
“The Web of Data”
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Whilst there is some confusion over the term, most people use
“Web 3.0” to refer to the Semantic Web. I do.
Either way, the label is a bit of a distraction, but marketers love it,
so what can I say!
Web 3.0
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Web 3.0 is about the Web itself understanding the meaning of
web content and social web participation.
The Web becomes a universal medium for data, information
and knowledge exchange.
The Semantic Web converts the current web of unstructured
documents into a "web of data” building on the W3C's Resource
Description Framework (RDF).
Web 3.0 cont.
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A hypothesis of the Semantic Web is that meaning can be
conveyed via expressions known as triples:
Triples
Subject (resource)
Predicate(property)
Object(value)
Kathryn Bigelow Directed Hurt Locker
Mark Boal Wrote Hurt Locker
Hurt Locker Stars Jeremy Renner
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Resource Description Framework (RDF) is a language at the heart
of the Semantic Web for expressing data models using
statements expressed as triples.
And the secret sauce?... to avoid ambiguities, each and every
subject, predicate and object of a triple can be referred to
uniquely with a URL (objects can have literal values too however).
RDF
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We could define all three of these locally, in our own little worlds,
but all three are likely to be referred to elsewhere too.
And that’s where the power of the Semantic Web starts to kick in.
Local and global
Subject(resource)
Predicate(property)
Object(value)
Philip Sheldrake Knows Doc Searls
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I’m not the one and only Philip Sheldrake.
Eg, Professor Philip Sheldrake is a Professorial Research Fellow in the Department of
Theology and Religion at Durham University.
So how do we define me uniquely? Well, with reference to:
http://sheldrake.myopenid.com or
http://philipsheldrake.com or
http://www.google.com/profiles/philip.sheldrake.
Similarly, Doc Searls may be http://searls.com.
The subject and object
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But what about the concept of “knows”?
What does “knows” mean to you right now?
What about in different social contexts?
How might other cultures and languages regard “knows”?
Eg, The French language has “savoir” & “connaître”.
The predicate
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Well FOAF (Friend Of A Friend) is a machine-readable ontology /
vocabulary describing persons, their activities and their relations
to other people and objects.
To invoke reference to the FOAF ontology we write:
<rdf:RDF xmlns:foaf=http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/>
At that URI we will find a definition of “knows”:
http://xmlns.com/foaf/spec/#term_knows
The predicate cont.
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So now, when we express a statement as a triple like
Subject - http://philipsheldrake.com
Predicate - foaf:knows
Object - http://searls.com
there is no ambiguity as to what it means.
[Note: this format is for explanation purposes only and does not constitute sound syntax!]
The resultant triple
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I referred earlier to the Semantic Web’s full potential, and that full
potential is described by a vision known as Linked Data.
Tim Berners-Lee’s four principles of Linked Data, paraphrased:
1. Use URIs to identify things
2. Use HTTP URIs so that these things can be referred to and looked up
("dereferenced") by people and user agents
3. Provide useful information about the thing when its URI is dereferenced, using
standard formats such as RDF/XML
4. Include links to other, related URIs in the exposed data to improve discovery of
other related information on the Web.
The full potential
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LinkedData image
Linking Open Data datasets, September 2011 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:LOD_Cloud_Diagram_as_of_September_2011.png
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Wall Street Journal
March 15, 2012
Google Gives Search a Refresh
By AMIR EFRATI
Google Inc. is giving its tried-and-true Web-search formula a makeover as it tries to fix the
shortcomings of today's technology and maintain its dominant market share.
Over the next few months, Google's search engine will begin spitting out more than a list of blue
Web links. It will also present more facts and direct answers to queries at the top of the search-
results page.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304459804577281842851136290.html
Google getting more semantic
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Visit http://www.visualdataweb.org/relfinder/relfinder.php
Type "Million Dollar Baby" in the 1st box
Type "Letters from Iwo Jima" in the 2nd box
…selecting the first result the engine finds for both.
Now click "Find Relations" and sit back and feel the power of the
semantic Web! Click the boxes with rounded corners.
Movie databases are one of the first data sources to be RDF’d, but this kind of analysis will become
increasingly possible in Semantic Web browsers whatever your search terms as the Semantic Web
continues to grow.
See Linked Data in action
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Tim Berners-Lee on the Semantic Web
http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=HeUrEh-nqtU
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Paid – Pay others to have your message on their media
Owned – This media is (actually or effectively) mine; I can
publish what I like
Earned – Media relations, stakeholder conversations, user-
generated content, endorsements (or otherwise)
Machined – content that is automatically discovered, presented
and published by machines for humans.
Machined media
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The Web of Data exposes connections, correlations, relationships.
Business models that monetize network effects – where the
analytical and commercial power accrues to the host with the
largest dataset so even more data is attracted gravitationally –
are dead.
Eventually.
Discovery is the new search. The new social graph is truly open.
(Today’s) Facebook is dead
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THE INTERNET OF THINGS
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The Internet of Things refers to a network of objects not
historically connected. We can consider four kinds of objects:
The device containing electronics in order to fulfil its primary function
(eg, washing machine, car, aircon unit)
The electrical device traditionally absent of sophisticated electronics
(eg, lighting, heating, power distribution)
Non-electrical objects
(eg, food and drink packages, animals, clothing)
Environmental sensors
(eg, for variables such as temperature, ambient sound and moisture).
Defining the Internet of Things
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IBM Internet of Things video
http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=sfEbMV295Kk
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How many things?
Number of things on the Internet.
Typical forecast for 2020.
Global human popn.
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Each and every one of us is going to be kicking off more data –
what some refer to as our digital exhaust or digital footprint.
I like to call it digital detritus.
Detritus – discarded organic matter that’s then decomposed by
microorganisms and re-appropriated by animal and plant life.
Interestingly analogous then to our regard for and treatment of
this data we’re all shedding.
Digital detritus
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We collect the click path of visitors’ interactions with our website
today, but we can’t yet access the data describing their use of
physical products.
We can invite customers to share their location data with us, but
we can’t yet help them review their transport carbon footprint.
We will soon.
Digital detritus cont.
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We can encourage the consumer to reap the anticipated
advantages of greener products and services, but we can’t
identify the actual advantage they achieve and reflect it back at
them.
We can market a food product’s expected role in a balanced diet,
but not the specific role it plays in a particular household’s diet.
We will soon.
Digital detritus cont.
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I call the manifestations of the Internet of Things – the properties
that result from enmeshing the analogue and digital worlds – the
Internetome.
If emergent behaviours stem from the 2 billion humans on today’s
social web, we can expect something similar from the ‘real world’
interacting with many tens of billions of things.
The Internetome itself might become an organizational
stakeholder of sorts.
The Internetome
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SO?
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the web + semantic web + internet of things
= really big.
Data – discrete, objective facts, signals or symbols devoid of context and
interpretation and therefore of no meaning or value.
Information – the result of structuring or organizing data in such a way as to give it
meaning and relevance for specific purpose or in a specific context.
Knowledge – the result of structuring or organizing information in such a way that it
helps to form a framework for the incorporation of further information and aids the
evaluation of the world, accruing experience, expertise and know-how.
Big Data. Big Info. Big Knowledge.
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Engaged in the process by which companies create value for
customers and build strong customer relationships in order to
capture value from customers in return.
The marketing professional
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Principles of Marketing (5th European ed.), Philip Kotler, Gary Armstrong, Veronica Wong, John Saunders, 2008, Pearson Education, ISBN 978-0273711568
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Engaged in the planned and sustained effort to influence opinion
and behaviour, and to be influenced similarly, in order to build
mutual understanding and goodwill.
The public relations professional
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http://www.philipsheldrake.com/2011/11/public-relations-defined-%E2%80%93-the-anatomy-of-a-candidate-definition-ver-0-2/
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An organization’s place in the world will increasingly become
defined by the related flows of data, information and knowledge.
Such flows constitute influence flows when they lead a
stakeholder to do something they wouldn’t otherwise have done
or think something they wouldn’t otherwise have thought.
Flows of data, information & knowledge
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The Six Influence Flows
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The influence professional knows that the ease and effectiveness
with which we manage and learn from influence flows is integral
to the ways all stakeholders interact with organizations to broker
mutually valuable, beneficial relationships.
The influence professional
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Content for content’s sake may drive transactional volume (eg,
clicks) but contributes little to long-term engagement, or
reputation building, or the formation of trusted, loyal and valuable
relationships.
You can help an organization learn what the world needs, and
identify when it has the data, information or knowledge to meet
that need.
Your role
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Your role is increasingly related to the practice of the influence
professional.
It entails identifying, preparing, publishing and maintaining data,
information and knowledge, and establishing and developing the
systems needed to do so, so that the organization is helpful,
valuable and influential to all stakeholders…
past, present and future customers, employees, citizens,
partners, etc.
Your role cont.
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http://semanticweb.org
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_Web
http://linkeddata.org
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linked_data
http://www.cambridgesemantics.com/semantic-university
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_of_Things
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/internet-of-things
http://www.philipsheldrake.com - my blog
Reading