Hi Marshall, I guess the question is... how good is good enough? For the semantic web ( freebase's subset of it, actually ) to answer your questions, a lot of data needs to be in place. Freebase is some sort of a centralized effort to build this database. And that my friend, takes time. However, I think the true value will come from the other side, from grassroots adoption. The killer app is already coming from that side, and it is called Linked Data. If RSS created a complete information revolution, imagine what will happen with a little more RDF scattered around the world. Around the enterprise. It's a complex system. I think you should cover Sindice next in the SW saga, and then point people to Kingsley Idehen's Linked Data Browser ( OpenLink ). Nice to see David's remarkable work mentioned here... ;) Best, A - Aldo Bucchi from FriendFeed MT Plugin

@Aldo, you've correctly identified the problem with Semantic Web, but you're incredibly optimistic in your hopes for a solution. I don't see it taking off because it's just more work for content creators to do with little benefit. - Jason Carreira

@Jason Yes, there is little incentive to publish. But that's not true for ALL publishers. Just those who are counting on capitalizing on the attention generated at the consumption of the data. ( like RWW ). What about those who need to publish their data for human users, and then need to create APIs to deliver the same data in a machine readable form? That's an incentive right there, and a BIG one. I have been using RDF for five years to do just that. As middleware in the enterprise, and it pays of. The problem in that case is more about skills and tools. But that is changing too. We will soon have our identity + data trying to merge through the walls of many internet properties. RDF is a smart, cheap, standard choice. Let's say that I agree with you, but I am optimistic because I know how really powerful RDF can be from the "data bus" and blackboard perspective, and I am counting on more people realizing that in the short term. ( it's all in the power of the URL ). The SW is already here. But it's gon - Aldo Bucchi from FriendFeed MT Plugin

Liking it cause I think the life science informatics people will have some opinions. IMO, Parallax is an amazing example of what's possible with structured data (and there are a number of example that Freebase has done a great job of highlighting, even if it doesn't quite fit optimally onto the semantic web) - Deepak Singh

http://www.w3.org/TR... vs. http://groups.google.com/group... - So Google got less than a year's head start on the SW. 11 years (!!) later, the SW is still gonna be useful, really! Any day now.... (Seriously - some of the stuff out of SIMILE was useful on the real-web. But point me at any other working, non-demoware SW site...) - Nick Lothian