Kingsley Uyi Idehen's Weblog

The Calamitous Nature of Opportunity

Fri, 10 Oct 2008 16:30:53 GMT

As articulated in timeless fashion by Albert Einstein:

The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them.

This quote also applies to the current global financial mess because the essence of this crisis remains inextricably linked to dependency on outdated "closed world" systems.

How we got here (5,000 ft. view)

We have a global human network that depends on systems driven by, and confined to, data silos! Every time you hear a CEO, Government Official, work colleague, neighbor, sibling, or relative tell you they didn't see it coming, just remember:

For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction
For every debit there is a credit
What goes around, comes around
No man is an Island (little tweak: Human)
We are all Linked whether we like it or not
System preserving reboots are a feature of all intelligently designed systems.

Why there won't be a Depression

There won't be a depression because we can't afford one. Just like we couldn't afford to continue with the manner in which our systems work today. Unlike the '30s, we all know that there are no absolute safe havens right now, we have enough information at our disposal to eventually understand (post panic) that stuffing the mattress isn't an option (even government bonds won't cut it, ditto money market accounts).

The Opportunity

Take a deep breadth and tell traditional media to "shut up". As per usual, the traditional mass media wants to have it both ways by stoking the panic and maxing out on the frenzy with reckless abandon (as per usual). If there is a time to appreciate the blogosphere and quality journalism etc.. It's now.

Anyway, as the saying goes: "It's always darkest before dawn", and as bizarre as this may sound in some quarters, things will ultimately change for the better. It just so happened that a really big cane was required in order for us to change our dysfunctional ways :-(

I recently wrote a post about "zero based cognition" that sought to bring attention to the power of "Human Thought" in relation to value creation.

Innovative creation and dissemination of value is how we will eventually get out of the current mess (as we've done in the past). The predictability of the aforementioned reality is significantly increased by the sheer link density and resulting "network effects" potential of the Internet and World Wide Web. Our ability to "connect the dots" as part of our value creation, dissemination, and consumption processing pipelines is what will ultimately separate the winners from the losers (individuals, enterprises, nations).

Yihong Ding's insightful perspectives
Jason Kolb's poignant piece titled: The Year Innovation Died
Tech Start-ups and the Economy's Best Hope
Money as Debt - (a documentary spotted by Danja)
Peter Kalfka's post: Smart Startup Advice: Don't Panic - Profit
George Soros Interview.

State of the Linked Data Web

Fri, 10 Oct 2008 02:27:44 GMT

The evolution of the Web into a federated database, information space, and knowledge-base hybrid continues at frenetic pace.

As more Linked Data is injected into the Web from the Linking Open Data community and other initiatives, it's important to note that "Linked Data" is available in a variety of forms such as:

Data Model Definition oriented Linked Data (aka. Data Dictionary)
Data Model Instance Data (aka. Instance Data)
Linked Data oriented solutions that leverage the smart data substrate that Models and Instance Data meshes deliver.

Note: The common glue across the different types of Linked Data remains the commitment to data object (entity) identification and access via de-referencable URIs (aka. record / entity level data source names).

As stated in my recent post titled: Semantic Web: Travails to Harmony Illustrated. Harmonious intersections of instance data, data dictionaries (schemas, ontologies, rules etc.) provide a powerful substrate (smart data) for the development and deployment of "People" and/or "Machine" oriented solutions. Of course, others have commented on these matters and expressed similar views (see related section below).

The clickable venn diagram below, provides a simple exploration path that exposes the linkage that already exists, across the different Linked Data types, within the burgeoning Linked Data Web.

Anant Jingran's insightful LDP Conference Trip report
Anant's recent post about the future of Data
Mike Bergman - A New Constellation in the Linking Open Data (LOD) Sky
Frederick Giasson - Exploding DBpedia Domain using UMBEL

Dynamic Linked Data Constellation

Thu, 09 Oct 2008 21:23:25 GMT

Now that the virtues of dynamic generation of RDF based Linked Data are becoming clearer, I guess it's time to unveil the Virtuoso Sponger driven Dynamic Linked Data constellation diagram.

Our diagram depicts the myriad of data sources from which RDF Linked Data is generated "on the fly" via our data source specific RDF-zation cartridges/drivers. It also unveils how the sponger leverages the Linked Data constellations of UMBEL, DBpedia, Bio2Rdf, and others for lookups.

What is Linked Data oriented RDF-ization?

Mon, 06 Oct 2008 20:14:26 GMT

RDF-ization is a term used by the Semantic Web community to describe the process of generating RDF from non RDF Data Sources such as (X)HTML, Weblogs, Shared Bookmark Collections, Photo Galleries, Calendars, Contact Managers, Feed Subscriptions, Wikis, and other information resource collections.

If the RDF generated, results in an entity-to-entity level network (graph) in which each entity is endowed with a de-referencable HTTP based ID (a URI), we end up with an enhancement to the Web that adds Hyperdata linking across extracted entities, to the existing Hypertext based Web of linked documents (pages, images, and other information resource types). Thus, I can use the same URL linking mechanism to reference a broader range of "Things" i.e., documents, things that documents are about, or things loosely associated with documents.

The Virtuoso Sponger is an example of an RDF Middleware solution from OpenLink Software. It's an in-built component of the Virtuoso Universal Server, and deployable in many forms e.g., Software as Service (SaaS) or traditional software installation. It delivers RDF-ization services via a collection of Web information resource specific Cartridges/Providers/Drivers covering Wikipedia, Freebase, CrunchBase, WikiCompany, OpenLibrary, Digg, eBay, Amazon, RSS/Atom/OPML feed sources, XBRL, and many more.

RDF-ization alone doesn't ensure valuable RDF based Linked Data on the Web. The process of producing RDF Linked Data is ultimately about the art of effectively describing resources with an eye for context.

RDF-ization Processing Steps

Entity Extraction
Vocabulary/Schema/Ontology (Data Dictionary) mapping
HTTP based Proxy URI generation
Linked Data Cloud Lookups (e.g., perform UMBEL lookup to add "isAbout" fidelity to graph and then lookup DBpedia and other LOD instance data enclaves for Identical individuals and connect via "owl:sameAs")
RDF Linked Data Graph projection that uses the description of the container information resource to expose the URIs of the distilled entities.

The animation that follows illustrates the process (5,000 feet view), from grabbing resources via HTTP GET, to injecting RDF Linked Data back into the Web cloud:

Note: the Shredder is a Generic Cartridge, so you would have one of these per data source type (information resource type).

Where Are All the RDF-based Semantic Web Applications?

Wed, 01 Oct 2008 19:09:34 GMT

In response to the "Semantic Web Technology" application classification scheme espoused by ReadWriteWeb (RWW), emphasized in the post titled: Where are all the RDF-based Semantic Web Apps?, here is my attempt to clarify and reintroduce what OpenLink Software offers (today) in relation to Semantic Web technology.

From the RWW Top-Down category, which I interpret as: technologies that produce RDF from non RDF data sources. Our product portfolio is comprised of the following; Virtuoso Universal Server, OpenLink Data Spaces, OpenLink Ajax Toolkit, and OpenLink Data Explorer (which includes ubiquity commands).

Virtuoso Universal Server functionality summary:

Generation of RDF Linked Data Views of SQL, XML, and Web Services in general
Deployment of RDF Linked Data
"On the Fly" generation of RDF Linked Data from Document Web information resources (i.e. distillation of entities from their containers e.g. Web pages) via Cartridges / Drivers
SPARQL query language support
SPARQL extensions that bring SPARQL closer to SQL e.g Aggregates, Update, Insert, Delete Named Graph support (i.e. use of logical names to partition RDF data within Virtuoso's multi-model dbms engine)
Inference Engine (currently in use re. DBpedia via Yago and UMBEL)
Host and exposes data from Drupal, Wordpress, MediaWiki, phpBB3 as RDF Linked Data via in-built support for PHP runtime
Available as an EC2 AMI
etc..

OpenLink Data Spaces functionality summary:

Simple mechanism for Linked Data Web enabling yourself by giving you an HTTP based User ID (a de-referencable URI) that is linked to a FOAF based Profile page and OpenID
Binds all your data sources (blogs, wikis, bookmarks, photos, calendar items etc. ) to your URI so can "Find" things by only remembering your URI
Makes your profile page and personal URI the focal point of Linked Data Web presence
Delivers Data Portability (using data access by value or data access by reference) across data silos (e.g. Web 2.0 style social networks)
Allows you make annotations about anything in your own Data Space(s) on the Web without exposure to RDF markup
A Briefcase feature that provides a WebDAV driven RDF Linked Data variant of functionality seen in Mac OS X Spotlight and WinFS with the addition of SPARQL compliance
Automatically generates RDFa in its (X)HTML pages
Blog, Wiki, WebDAV File Server, Shared Bookmarks, Calendar, and other applications that look and feel like Web 2.0 counterparts but emitt RDF Linked Data amongst a plethora of data exchange formats
Available as an EC2 AMI
etc..

OpenLink Ajax Toolkit functionality summary:

Provides binding to SQL, RDF, XML, and Web Services via Ajax Database Connectivity Layer (you only need an ODBC, JDBC, OLE-DB, ADO.NET, XMLA Driver, or Web Service on the backend for dynamic data access from Javascript)
All controls are Ajax Database Connectivity bound (widgets get their data from Ajax Database Connectivity data sources)
Bundled with Virtuoso and ODS installations.
etc.

OpenLink Data Explorer functionality summary

Distills entities associated with information resource style containers (e.g. Web Pages or files) as RDF Linked Data
Exposes the RDF based Linked Data graph associated with information resources (see the Linked Data behind Web pages)
Ubiquity commands for invoking the above
Available as a Hosted Service or Firefox Extension
Bundled with Virtuoso and ODS installations
etc.

Note:

Of course you could have simply looked up OpenLink Software's FOAF based Profile page (*note the Linked Data Explorer tab*), or simply passed the FOAF profile page URL to a Linked Data aware client application such as: OpenLink Data Explorer, Zitgist Data Viewer, Marbles, and Tabulator, and obtained information. Remember, OpenLink Software is an Entity of Type: foaf:Organization, on the burgeoning Linked Data Web :-)

Linked Data Planet Keynote (RDFa based remix edition)
On The Cusp: A Global Review of the Semantic Web Industry.

Semantic Web: Travails to Harmony Illustrated

Sat, 27 Sep 2008 00:14:23 GMT

All about Description Logics

Over emphasis on the Data Dictionary (RDFS, OWL, Inference & Reasoning etc) without any actual real-world instance data (e.g., lot's of reasoning over RDF in zip files or local drives).

All about Linking Openly accessible RDF Data Sets

Over emphasis on Instance Data without Data Dictionary appreciation and binding (e.g., Linked Data and instance level linkage via "owl:sameAs").

All about Applications & Frameworks

Here we are dealing with numerous applications and frameworks that inextricably bind Instance Data Management and Data Dictionaries. Basically, an all or nothing proposition, if you want to delve into the RDF Linked Data solutions realm.

Often overlooked, is the fact that the Linked Data Web - as an aspect of the Semantic Web innovation continuum - is fundamentally about designing and constructing an "Open World" compatible DBMS for the Internet. Thus, erstwhile "Closed World" DBMS components such as Data Dictionaries (handlers of Data Definition, Referential Integrity etc.) and actual Instance Data, are now distributed and loosely coupled. Thus, your data could be in one Data Space while the data dictionary resides in another. In actual fact, you could have several loosely bound data dictionaries that serve the specific Inference and Reasoning needs of a variety of applications, services, or agents.

The Linked Data Market via a BCG Matrix (Updated)

Thu, 25 Sep 2008 20:42:49 GMT

The sweet spot of Web 3.0 (or any other Web.vNext moniker) is all about providing Web Users with a structured and interlinked data substrate that facilitates serendipitous discovery of relevant "Things" i.e., a Linked Data Web -- a Web of Linkable Entities that goes beyond documents and other information resource (data containers) types.

Understanding potential Linked Data Web business models, relative to other Web based market segments, is best pursued via a BCG Matrix diagram, such as the one I've constructed below:

Notes:

Link Density

Web 1.0's collection of "Web Sites" have relatively low link density relative to Web 2.0's user-activity driven generation of semi-structured linked data spaces (e.g., Blogs, Wikis, Shared Bookmarks, RSS/Atom Feeds, Photo Galleries, Discussion Forums etc..)
Semantic Technologies (i.e. "Semantics Inside style solutions") which are primarily about "Semantic Meaning" culled from Web 1.0 Pages also have limited linked density relative to Web 2.0
The Linked Data Web, courtesy of the open-ended linking capacity of URIs, matches and ultimately exceeds Web 2.0 link density.

Relevance

Web 1.0 and 2.0 are low relevance realms driven by hyperlinks to information resources ((X)HTML, RSS, Atom, OPML, XML, Images, Audio files etc.) associated with Literal Labels and Tagging schemes devoid of explicit property based resource description thereby making the pursuit of relevance mercurial at best
Semantic Technologies offer more relevance than Web 1.0 and 2.0 based on the increased context that semantic analysis of Web pages accords
The Linked Data Web, courtesy of URIs that expose self-describing data entities, match the relevance levels attained by Semantic Technologies.

Serendipity Quotient (SDQ)

Web 1.0 has next to no serendipity, the closest thing is Google's "I'm Feeling Lucky" button
Web 2.0 possess higher potential for serendipitous discovery than Web 1.0, but such potential is neutralized by inherent subjectivity due to its human-interaction-focused literal foundation (e.g., tags, voting schemes, wiki editors etc.)
Semantic Technologies produce islands-of-relevance with little scope for serendipitous discovery due to URI invisibility, since the prime focus is delivering more context to Web search relative to traditional Web 1.0 search engines.
The Linked Data Web's use of URIs as the naming and resolution mechanism for exposing structured and interlinked resources provides the highest potential for serendipitous discovery of relevant "Things"

To conclude, the Linked Data Web's market opportunities are all about the evolution of the Web into a powerful substrate that offers a unique intersection of "Link Density" and "Relevance", exploitable across horizontal and vertical market segments to solutions providers. Put differently, SDQ is how you take "The Ad" out of "Advertising" when matching Web users to relevant things :-)

View Plurality Deficiency & Programming Language Autism

Wed, 17 Sep 2008 14:38:20 GMT

I've just read a really nice post by Henry Story titled: Are OO Languages Autistic?

In typical style, Henry walks you through his point of view using simple but powerful illustrations. Here is a key statement in his post that really struck me:

"In order to be able to have a mental theory one needs to be able to understand that other people may have a different view of the world. On a narrow three dimensional understanding of 'view', this reveals itself in that people at different locations in a room will see different things. One person may be able to see a cat behind a tree that will be hidden to another. In some sense though these two views can easily be merged into a coherent description."

Opaque Web pages (e.g., generated by Semantic Technology inside offerings that will not expose or share data entity URIs), irrespective of how smart the underlying page generation and visualization technology may be, a fundamentally autistic and counter intuitive as we move toward a Web of Linked Data.

Preoccupation with the "V" aspect of the M-V-C trinity is inadvertently compounding and the problem of digital autism on the Web. Unbeknownst to the purveyors of data silos and proprietary service lock-in, digital autism on the Web ultimately implies Web business model autism.

Zero-based Cognition (Difference between Humans & Machines)

Wed, 17 Sep 2008 13:43:21 GMT

Human beings, courtesy of the gift of cognition, are capable of creating reusable data, information, knowledge from simple or complex observations in an abstract realm. A machine on the other hand can only discover and infere based on a substrate of structured and interlinked data, information, or knowledge in a concrete human created realm e.g., a Web of Linked Data.

As is quite common these days, Yihong Ding has written another great piece titled: A New Take on Internet-Based AI, that delves into this specific matter. Yihong expresses an vital insight as excerpted below:

"Artificial intelligence is supposed to let machines do things for people. The risk is that we may rely too much on them. Two months ago, for instance, writer Nicolas Carr asked whether Google is making us stupid. In my recent blog series "The Age of Google," I extended Carr’s discussion. Due to the success of Google, we are relying more on objective search than on active thinking to answer questions. In consequence, the more Google has advanced its service, the farther Google users have drifted from active thinking."

"But at least one form of human thinking cannot be replaced by machines. I am not talking about inference/discovery (which machines may be capable of doing) but about creation/generation-from-nothing (which I don’t believe machines may ever do)."

I tend to describe our ability to create/generate-from-nothing as "Zero-based Cognition", which is initially about "thought" and the eventually about "speed of thought dissemination" and "global thought meshing".

In a peculiar sense, Zero-based cognition is analogous to Zero-based budgeting from the accounting realm :-)

An Introduction to Thought Networking

Web 1.0, 2.0, and 3.0 (Yet Again)

Mon, 15 Sep 2008 17:33:44 GMT

If your Web presence doesn't extend beyond (X)HTML web pages, you are only participating in Web usage Dimension 1.0.

If your Web presence goes beyond (X)HTML pages, via the addition of REST or SOAP based Web Services, then you re participating in Web usage dimension 2.0.

If you Web presence includes all of the above, with the addition of structured data interlinked with structured data across other points of presence on the Web, then you are participating in Web usage dimension 3.0 i.e., "Linked Data Web" or "Web of Data" or "Data Web".

BTW - If you've already done all of the above, and you have started building intelligent agents that exploit the aforementioned structured interlinked data substrate, then you are already in Web usage dimension 4.0.

Web usage pattern evolution

The Trouble with Labels

Fri, 12 Sep 2008 01:47:05 GMT

Unfortunately our fixation with "Labels" and the artificial link that exist between "Labels" and so-called "first mover advantage" continue to impede our progress to clarity about matters such as a fully functional Web of interlinked data.

A while back I watched Kevin Kelly's 5,000 days presentation at TED. During the presentation, I kept on scratching my head, wondering why phrases like "Linked Data", "Semantic Web", "Web of Data", "Data Web" where so unnaturally disconnected from his session narrative.

Yesterday I watched IMINDI's TechCrunch 50 presentation, and once again I saw the aforementioned pattern repeat itself. This time around, the poor founders of this "Linked Data Web" oriented company (which is what they are in reality) took a totally undeserved pasting from a bunch of panelist incapable of seeing beyond today (Web 2.0) and yesterday (initial Web bootstrap).

Anyway, thanks to the Web, this post will make a small contribution towards re-connecting the missing phrases to these "Linked Data Web" presentations.

Business Value of Linked Data (Enterprise Angle)?

Thu, 11 Sep 2008 18:59:24 GMT

All enterprises run IS/MIS/EIS systems that are supposed to enable optimized exploitation of data, information, and knowledge. Unfortunately, applications, services (SOAP or REST), database engines, middleware, operating systems, programming languages, development frameworks, network protocols, network topologies, or some other piece of infrastructure, eventually lay claim (possessively) to the data.

Courtesy of Linked Data, we are now able to extend the "document to document" linking mechanism of the Web (Hypertext Linking) to more granular "entity to entity" level linking. And in doing so, we have a layer of abstraction that in one swoop alleviates all of the infrastructure oriented data access impediments of yore. I know this sounds simplistic, but be rest assured, imbibing Linked Data's value proposition is really just that simple, once you engage solutions (e.g. Virtuoso) that enable you to deploy Linked Data across your enterprise.

Example:

Microsoft ACCESS, SQL Server, and Virtuoso all use the Northwind SQL DB Schema as the basis of the demonstration database shipped with each DBMS product. This schema is comprised of common IS/MIS entities that include: Customers, Contacts, Orders, Products, Employees etc.

What we all really want to do as data, information, and knowledge consumers and/or dispatchers, is be no more than a single "mouse click" away from relevant data/information/knowledge data access and/or exploration. Even better (but not always so obvious), we also want anyone in our network (company, division, department, cube-cluster) to inherit these data access efficiencies.

In this example, the Web Page about the Customer "ALKI" provides me with a myriad of exploration and data access paths e.g., when I click on the foaf:primarytopic property value link.

This simple example, via a single Web Page, should put to rest any doubts about the utility of Linked Data. Of course this is an old demo, but this time around the UI is minimalist as my prior attempts skipped a few steps i.e., starting from within a Linked Data explorer/browser.

Important note: I haven't exported SQL into an RDF data warehouse, I am converting the SQL into RDF Linked Data on the fly which has two fundamental benefits:

No vulnerability to changes in the source DBMS
Superior performance over the RDF warehouse since the source schema is SQL based and I can leverage the optimization of the underlying SQL engine when translating between SPARQL and SQL.

Enjoy!

Linked Data, Ubiquity Commands, and Resource Descriptions (Update 3)

Fri, 05 Sep 2008 01:43:11 GMT

Ubiquity from Mozilla Labs, provides an alternative entry point for experiencing the "Controller" aspect of the Web's natural compatibility with the MVC development pattern. As I've noted (in various posts) Web Services, as practiced by the REST oriented Web 2.0 community or SOAP oriented SOA community within the enterprise, is fundamentally about the ("Controller" aspect of MVC.

Ubiquity provides a commandline interface for direct invocation of Web Services. For instance, in our case, we can expose the Virtuoso's in-built RDF Middleware ("Sponger") and Linked Data deployment services via a single command of the form: describe-resource .

To experience this neat addition to Firefox you need to do the following:

Download and install the Ubiquity Extension for Firefox
Subscribe to the OpenLink Command for Resource Description
Click on CTRL+Space (Windows / Linux) or Option+Space (Mac OS X)
Type in: describe-resource

How to unsubscribe

At the current time, you need to do this if you've installed commands using ubiquity 0.1.0 and seek to use newer versions of the same commands after upgrading to ubiquity 0.1.1.

To unsubscribe use type "about:ubiquity" into browser
Click on unsubscribe links associated with you command subscription list

Enjoy!

What's Up with Chrome?

Wed, 03 Sep 2008 20:33:32 GMT

Here are a few descriptions of pages covering Google's Chrome browser:

Daniel Lewis - Comparative Analysis
CrunchBase - Product Page
GigaOM - Industry Analysis
Wikipedia
CNET - Privacy Issues Analysis
ReadWriteWeb - Security Issues Analysis
OakLeaf - SaaS Terms Analysis

As per usual, this is part post and part Linked Data demo. This time around, I am showcasing Proxy/Wrapper based dereferencable URIs and a new "Page Description" feature that showcases the capabilities of Virtuoso's in-built RDFization Middleware. Also note, the resource descriptions (RDF) are presented using an HTML page.

Programming the Universe

Tue, 02 Sep 2008 17:03:59 GMT

I continue to be intrigued by Yihong Ding's shared insights as expressed in part 2 of his blog series titled: Programming the Universe. The blog series shares Yihong's thoughts and reflections stimulated by the book, also titled: Programming the Universe.

What strikes me the most, is how sharing his findings act as serendipitous connectors to related insights and points of view, that ultimately create deeper shared knowledge about the core subject matter, courtesy of the Web hosted Blogosphere.

Metcalfe, Einstein, and Linked Data.

Kingsley Uyi Idehen's Weblog

The Calamitous Nature of Opportunity

How we got here (5,000 ft. view)

Why there won't be a Depression

The Opportunity

Related

State of the Linked Data Web

Related

Dynamic Linked Data Constellation

What is Linked Data oriented RDF-ization?

RDF-ization Processing Steps

Where Are All the RDF-based Semantic Web Applications?

Virtuoso Universal Server functionality summary:

OpenLink Data Spaces functionality summary:

OpenLink Ajax Toolkit functionality summary:

OpenLink Data Explorer functionality summary

Note:

Related

Semantic Web: Travails to Harmony Illustrated

All about Description Logics

All about Linking Openly accessible RDF Data Sets

All about Applications & Frameworks

The Linked Data Market via a BCG Matrix (Updated)

Notes:

Link Density

Relevance

Serendipity Quotient (SDQ)

View Plurality Deficiency & Programming Language Autism

Zero-based Cognition (Difference between Humans & Machines)

Related

Web 1.0, 2.0, and 3.0 (Yet Again)

Related

The Trouble with Labels

Business Value of Linked Data (Enterprise Angle)?

Example:

Related

Linked Data, Ubiquity Commands, and Resource Descriptions (Update 3)

How to unsubscribe

What's Up with Chrome?

Programming the Universe

Related