The Semantic Web
Semantic comes from the Greek words for sign, signify, and significant, and today means of or relating to meaning, often in language. Call the Semantic Web the world’s largest, bottom-up, never-ending systems integration project, with the goal of making everything interoperate intelligently.
Tim Berners-Lee, who invented the World Wide Web back in 1989, had this vision, now shared by many, of a Web of data which machines can process.
"The Semantic Web is an extension of the current web in which information is given well-defined meaning, better enabling computers and people to work in cooperation." -- Tim Berners-Lee, James Hendler, Ora Lassila, The Semantic Web, Scientific American, May 2001
The mix of content on the Web has been shifting from exclusively human-oriented content to more and more data content. For the Web to reach its full potential, it must evolve into a Semantic Web, providing a universally accessible platform that allows data to be shared and processed by automated tools as well as by people.
The Semantic Web is an initiative of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), and the W3C Semantic Web Activity has been established to serve a leadership role, in both the design of specifications and the open, collaborative development of technology.
