tag:,2008:/1/tag:72.47.210.69,2007://1.3813- 2008-05-09T18:14:20Z Comments for New Version of BlueOrganizer Launched - Semantic Web In Action? Movable Type 4.1 tag:72.47.210.69,2007://1.3813 2007-05-23T08:26:12Z 2007-12-16T23:11:32Z New Version of BlueOrganizer Launched - Semantic Web In Action? Today AdaptiveBlue released a new version of its BlueOrganizer product, a Firefox extension that aims to provide extra contextual information to you while browsing the Web. Basically after you install BlueOrganizer in your Firefox, it enables you to discover all kinds of relevant content while you're browsing - such as books, music, links, related information,... Richard MacManus http://www.readwriteweb.com Today AdaptiveBlue released a new version of its BlueOrganizer product, a Firefox extension that aims to provide extra contextual information to you while browsing the Web. Basically after you install BlueOrganizer in your Firefox, it enables you to discover all kinds of relevant content while you're browsing - such as books, music, links, related information, etc. Essentially then, it adds personalization and semantics into the browser (Firefox).

AdaptiveBlue is the company of Alex Iskold, a regular writer on Read/WriteWeb. He is one of the smartest technologists I know and his posts here are a consistent source of inspiration and conversation amongst the R/WW community. Which leads me to say: what's interesting about the new release of BlueOrganizer is that it puts much of Alex's theories about Web 2.0 and the Semantic Web into practice. I'll explain how in this post.

]]> What's New?

First, what has been released today? Here are the highlights of the release, code-named BlueOrganizer Denim:

  • BlueMenu in the Firefox Toolbar - the menu is now accessible from the Firefox toolbar, without the need to right-click;
  • SmartLinks - BlueOrganizer users can now publish SmartLinks that contain contextual shortcuts to related information. See demo here;
  • Re-designed BlueMarks and sidebar, for saving and managing your personal information (see screenshot below);
  • Improved Content Recognition - faster, more precise and works on any page, link and text selection.


BlueMarks and sidebar

Techcrunch has more coverage of the features, but for this post I want to turn now to the Semantic Web elements.

Top Down Semantic Web

Most of the web 2.0 products you see nowadays use bottom-up content organization techniques. For example, del.icio.us and Flickr use tags from users to organize content, and MySpace and YouTube are based on user-generated content that is mostly discovered via a user's social network along with search. But BlueOrganizer is different - it is a "Top-down Semantic Web" approach.

Alex's theory is that the Semantic Web will arrive gradually, using a top-down approach. In the case of BlueOrganizer, what that means is it adds semantics to basic web elements: pages, links, text. With BlueOrganizer, a user can add a description to a web page (they might note down "web 2.0 blog" about readwriteweb.com, for example). BlueOrganizer then uses "a combination of parsers, web services and analysis algorithms" to take that unstructured content and turn it a structured content - such as related websites to readwriteweb.com. This structure is then retained, as the content is used again and again in BlueOrganizer. Alex has a neat phrase to describe this, saying it "empowers people to re-write the web using automation." Here's an illustration of the concept:

Conclusion

All up, BlueOrganizer is an excellent practical example of how semantic web technologies are creeping into Web 2.0. We forecast this in our 2007 predictions post at the end of 2006, which Alex contributed to. Interesting though that the 'official' semantic web efforts, led of course by Sir Tim Berners Lee, still aren't making much headway on the Web. But when you mix in user-generated content, APIs, "parsers, web services and analysis algorithms" and the rest of the techniques that AdaptiveBlue is using, well just maybe Sir Tim will get his Semantic Web after all.... just not perhaps as he envisaged it.

Disclosure: Alex Iskold, CEO of AdaptiveBlue, is a writer for R/WW.

]]> tag:72.47.210.69,2007://1.3813-comment:32775 Comment from william on 2007-05-23 william ...."AdaptiveBlue is the company of Alex Iskold, a regular writer on Read/WriteWeb..."
Can there be an un biased review of an application by the blog that the application creator has written for.There seem to be no negatives in the review points in the review other than those expressed about possible competitors. Is thiS the perfect application with no flaws ?

]]> 2007-05-23T10:07:10Z tag:72.47.210.69,2007://1.3813-comment:32776 Comment from Richard MacManus on 2007-05-23 Richard MacManus http://www.readwriteweb.com william, I made it very clear in the post about Alex's relationship to R/WW. Obviously a review here of Alex's company can never be completely unbiased, but I think the technology stands on its merits. You can argue that if you like in the comments, but you need to do a bit better if you want to go down that route (like actually mention something about the product that you don't like).

p.s. just to make it *super* clear, I have added a disclosure at the end.

]]> 2007-05-23T11:12:14Z tag:72.47.210.69,2007://1.3813-comment:32777 Comment from Rob Tsai on 2007-05-23 Rob Tsai http://zenrob.com/2007/05/23/a-new-and-improved-adaptive-blue/ Congratulations to Alex and his team.

-Rob

]]> 2007-05-23T13:50:31Z tag:72.47.210.69,2007://1.3813-comment:32778 Comment from Phill Midwinter on 2007-05-23 Phill Midwinter http://phillmidwinter.wordpress.com/2007/05/02/activists-or-mob-the-first-digg-riots/ I believe most of you know how I feel about re-tagging the internet by hand just to make it 'semantic'. Bluggh.

Regardless though, AdaptiveBlue is a very cool product and is the best example of how this should be done that I've seen.

]]> 2007-05-23T15:18:33Z tag:72.47.210.69,2007://1.3813-comment:32779 Comment from NitinK on 2007-05-23 NitinK http://blog.softwareabstractions.com Phill:

I think AdaptiveBlue has taken the approach that I believe is ultimately the most likely to succeed:

1. First, you use computers/algorithms to jump-start the initial analysis and usage of the Semantic Web
2. Second, once that effort gains traction, then you can use the Wisdom of Crowds to refine the results
3. Finally, as the process gains critical mass, individual web masters will jump on the bandwagon and change their web sites out of enlightened self-interest
3a. At that point, the process becomes the status quo (like Google PageRank is now, and dislodging it becomes progressively harder due to network effects)

In any case, I agree with you that AdaptiveBlue is a pretty cool product and I'm very happy to see their foray into the Semantic Web. Nice going, Alex!!

[Disclosure: I also occasionally write for the Read/WriteWeb. I have no connection to AdaptiveBlue.]

]]> 2007-05-23T17:33:41Z tag:72.47.210.69,2007://1.3813-comment:32780 Comment from p0ps on 2007-05-23 p0ps http://p0ps.typepad.com/p0ps_blog/2007/05/new_version_of_.html This is fantastic. I'll be using this for work and pleasure. Another great post in this always useful blog.

]]> 2007-05-23T23:54:39Z tag:72.47.210.69,2007://1.3813-comment:32781 Comment from Prof.K.Prabhakar on 2007-05-25 Prof.K.Prabhakar It is remarkable experience using browser with Blue organizer. However, we need a small tutorial on how to use it with Zotero, Google Notebook and other tools that will help everyone.
Prof.K.Prabhakar

]]> 2007-05-25T11:02:26Z tag:72.47.210.69,2007://1.3813-comment:32782 Comment from Alex Iskold on 2007-05-25 Alex Iskold http://www.adaptiveblue.com Richard, this is really an outstanding description of our approach, thanks for explaining it so well!

Alex

]]> 2007-05-26T03:24:17Z