Can Semantic Web be Made to Flourish?

Abstract

This panel's objective will be to discuss whether the Semantic Web can be made to grow in a "viral" manner, like the World Wide Web did in the early 1990s. The scope of the discussion will include efforts by the World Wide Web Consortium's Semantic Web Best Practices & Deployment Working Group to identify and publish best practices of Semantic Web practitioners, and the barriers to adoption of those practices by a wider community. The concept of “best practices” as it applies to a distributed, diverse and partially-defined Semantic Web will be discussed and its relevance debated. Specifically, panelists will discuss the capability of standards bodies, commercial companies and early adopters to create a viral technology.