Tag Archives: semantic web

twitter v. google for (re)search

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Where would we be without google (search)?  It has opened up a world of information for all of us.   But what now as twitter gets a real foothold.  It feels a little like the difference between listening to an hourly nes bulletin and reading a daily newspaper.  Perhaps with Google I can find the more comprehensive and more considered answer.  But with twitter I feel like I ma getting the current answer – like a news alert.

Interesting times.  Particularly becasue the nature of search/ research is changing – as web 3.0/ semantic web emerges.  Google, as expected, has been quick to look to leverage more effective ways of searching/ indexing data.  But these techniques are also availabel to twitter.

Semantic web in Ireland

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On a day of doom and gloom – the emergency budget in Ireland – was lucky enough to spend a couple of uplifting hours in the Institute of European Affairs, Ireland (www.iiea.com).

I was listening to and interacting with Liam Moran, business development manager, Digitial Enterprise Reseach Institute (Galway, Ireland).  DERI (www.deri.com) is the type of thing this country needs (‘The vision of the Digital Enterprise Research Institute is to be recognised as the leading international web science research institute interlinking technologies, information and people to advance business and benefit society’).  Set up with some real foresight, backed by the Irish government and Europe, real leadership (including Tim Berners Lee) and lots of brilliant minds.

Very exciting applications emerging from the research – the latest being SIOC to be adotped by the US government.  Visit the site (www.deri.com) for a better insight.

Liam gave a comprehensive review of Web o, 1, 2 & 3 and painted some great images of what could happen.

One particular observation caught my attention – how do we avoid getting bogged down in simply copying (even plagiarising) others to the exclusion of original, creative, thought?  Not being a music composer I often wonder where song writers continue to come up with new ideas?  Reminds me in some wasy of being back in school – when you were studying Shakepeare did you try to understand Hamlet for yourself and provide your own analysis/ commentary or did you simply buy ‘Coles Notes’ and regurgitate the standard bumph?

challenges for newspaper industry

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In my recent post I commented on my ongoing experience of reading the news online (http://www.bluereek.com/2009/03/reading-the-news-online/).  Broadly it’s positive todate.

As in any economic downturn the newspaper industry is being hard hit by significant drops in advertising revenue.  However there is a wider debate taking place about the future of newspapers – free papers, local papers, online news services.  Yesterday’s FT article, ‘When newspapers fold’ brings much of this together in one place.

I do not think there is any doubt that we continue, for now,  to need a vibrant, stimulating, well informed newspaper industry.  Obviously the web has changed things – in terms of work methods, speed of dissemination of information (e.g. twitter), availability of video, podcasts, etc.  And newspapers have not been slow to engage with the technology – providing current news feeds, quality web sites, personalised feeds, etc.

The challenge though now is how to build out a business which leverages these options/opportunities/ risks – providing a quality product, employment for news producers/ analysts and a reasonable return for the investor.   The industry seems to have flipped from charging for its online offerings to giving them away back to charging again. I do not think ‘news’ per se will command much in terms of income – there are too many ways for news to get around the world (as evidenced by the growth in mobile phones).  Indepth analysis, commentary, a particular slant/view – people may pay for this.  But is it a case of turning newspapers into magazines – where the timeliness is not as important?

Blogs such as this one are of little threat to the newspaper industry.  But as the semantic web advances we will begin to see the web providing a platform whereby individual users can gather all they are interested in through a portal.  www.twine.com provides an early insight.  But this is a long way short of what will be delivered – with each of us using a range of ‘agents’ to track/analyse/ present news/ research/ entertainment of interest to us.

Interesting times.  Newspapers who have great editors, journalists, photographers, researchers, producers must have a good future, if they can figure out the business model.  But everything goes into the melting pot.