Comments for SemTech Panel: Taking Semantic Technology to the Masses

SemTech Panel: Taking Semantic Technology to the Masses

2008-05-21T03:27:03Z

How will the Semantic Web make the jump to the mainstream? That was the topic of a panel at the SemTech 2008 Conference that is going on right now in San Jose. The panel was moderated by Carla Thomson from Guidewire Group and featured Josh Dilworth from Porter Novelli, Tom Tague, who heads the Calais initiative at Reuters, and Mark Johnson, who is a product manager at Powerset. This post is based on notes from that panel.

]]> Problems with Semantic Web Marketing

The panel began with a discussion of the mainstream and the Semantic Web. Everyone agrees that there is a big need to simplify messaging to the masses. Marketing the Semantic Web to consumers does not make sense because they don't care about technical specifics. People do not need to know about RDF and Microformats, what they are looking for are simple and tangible benefits that make their lives on the web easier.

Carla points out that we need to invent new terminology to describe the transformation and the new technologies that are being developed. She suggests to use the term "Smarter Web." This is a new web where people can find things that they are looking for faster, and experience more intelligent, contextual interactions with the vast amount of information out there.

What is the Killer App?

The discussion shifts from what is wrong with Semantic Web marketing to what is the "killer app" for the Semantic Web. Tom Tague says there is no killer app, and there really can't be. He thinks of semantic technologies as the spice, the infrastructure that will give rise to a family of semantic web applications. Tom argues that what we are seeing is pieces being brought slowly to market, which make search incrementally better, make browsing incrementally better, etc.

Naturally, the discussion shifts to the impact on Google. For better or worse, people expect the killer app for the Semantic Web to be a Google killer as well. As an example, after the recent launch of Powerset it has been constantly compared to Google. [Including on this blog -- Ed.] Mark Johnson points out that this is not reasonable, because Powerset is simply not yet there -- right now it can only search Wikipedia.

So coming full circle to Tom's point, if we're only going to get incremental improvements, the question is then how much effort is warranted. This is not a minor point given that the bar is set high because companies themselves and the media are creating lots of hype around the Semantic Web.

PR and Hype Around the Semantic Web

The goal of Powerset, for example, is to change the way that people interact with computers. Carla points out that marketing that claims large goals, like to change human-computer interactions, is quite ambitious. Maybe this messaging needs to be incremental just like the progress that is being achieved. As an example of adjustment in messaging, Carla suggests that it could simply be: Powerset today provides a better way of searching information in Wikipedia. As more tools are get rolled out, the messaging can adjust, and then once all the bits are in place, switch to the messaging about changing the way that people interact with computers.

An interesting twist to the whole conversation is the need for larger Semantic Web players to justify longer terms plans. Powerset, for example, is a 60 person company with > 20 employees that have PhDs in computational linguistics. Venture capitalists don't want to hear that all the company will do is to change the way that people search Wikipedia. So Powerset has been forced to justify a longer run and bigger staff by putting broader goals on the map.

Further, the messaging tool is the media, which is becoming increasingly more hype-based. Companies are being provoked to describe their broader vision, to appear big and ambitious in order to get coverage. So there is a conflict between market messaging, investor messaging and a realistic, long term plan to deliver semantic technologies to the market.

Ease of Use

Beyond marketing, everyone agrees that if semantic technologies can deliver tangible consumer benefits, then marketing problems will not be as acute. It is the tension between loud marketing and the modest forward progress being made that is leaving everyone underwhelmed.

And so, the panel agrees that Semantic Web companies need to pay more attention to the user experience, and to ease of use in particular. Tom Tague says that people don't care what is underneath. Infrastructure does not excite people, but UI does.

Conclusion

Panelists agreed that despite the challenges, companies are making definite progress. They also agreed that it would be good to tone down marketing, remove the grandiose Semantic Web slogans, and focus on specific consumer utility.

Comment from Jason Rothbart on 2008-05-20

2008-05-21T04:58:16Z

The hype of the semantic web often overwhelms its point - helping people find what they need quickly and easily. The goal of solving real problems gets lost and the focus instead falls on the technology, which is not an end.

At GroupSwim, we have a live application of semantic technology that helps paying customers solve important business problems like improving productivity and lowering expenses. We use a combination of Natural Language Processing and automatic meta-data generation to process content that goes into the application and make it easy to find through a semantic search tool. While huge fans of the Semantic Web, we balance developing new semantic features versus building table stakes like site permissions, email capability, and other less exciting features, but are critical for making our customers successful. I have no doubt that semantic technology will become more pervasive as time goes by. However, I expect it will be baked into applications like ours versus stand-alone technology.

Comment from Scott Brinker on 2008-05-21

2008-05-21T10:04:54Z

The relationship between "semantics" and "The Semantic Web" still seems somewhat loose to me, with the pragmatic implementation of the latter threatening to obscure the purely academic meaning of the former.

The Semantic Web strikes me as being about as "semantic" in its early years as, say, Java was "write once, run everywhere" in its beginning. However, Java was still immensely useful in its early years, and eventually the reality caught up further with the dream. It seems like a similar progression with The Semantic Web is plausible.

If there is a killer app in these early years, I think it's going to be search. And rather than being a Google killer, to the contrary, I think it will be the way Google makes the leap to the next level. Take Yahoo's SearchMonkey concept -- which I think is a brilliant first step in the right direction -- and push it farther, faster, and more open.

As I've shared before on this site, my particular interest in all of this is how it will transform the strategies and tactics of marketing departments, i.e., what "semantic marketing" might become. See http://www.chiefmartec.com/2008/03/marketing-in-th.html for details.

Comment from Jon on 2008-05-21

2008-05-21T12:21:07Z

There's certainly alot of hype out there. I agree that most users don't care about the underlying technology. I also don't think they care (or would know) that company XYZ has released only a part of their dream app because it's just not ready yet. Waiting for the "killer app" is, in my opinion, a waste of time. A small app which does what it does great is, well, great. Look at Twitter: super small, wasn't really finished when released, and we didn't care. Java was another great example. There was a time I thought Java would go the way of the dodo bird, but it hung in there and now it flies everywhere.

And why does everybody want to have the BIG app? Big apps lead to centralization of services and power on the web. I don't think any of us would like that, except the guys who own it. Personally I want my experience open, portable, and mine. The Google Killer that everybody's looking for is probably a conglomerate of smaller apps which work openly, seamlessly, together.

Save us from another MS, or Google, or (insert megacorp here).

Comment from Vuk Milicic on 2008-05-21

2008-05-21T13:06:47Z

I believe that the Semantic Web crowd makes a big mistake by watching the Semantic Web out of today's web context. Let's face it, today's web is a mess of data and it is far from ideal, making The Semantic Web vision and so-called Web 3.0 very hard to emerge.

Therefore, I think what we need now is more like web ‘2.5’ then a web 3.0, meaning we have to find an evolutionary step between the two. Reptiles did not evolve directly from the fish, but from amphibians. So, what would be amphibians in the Semantic Web sense? I strongly believe that tags are that connecting link in the evolution. I tried to explain the importance of a tag evolution in my blog post. If you read it, you'll notice I've hardly mentioned the word ‘Semantic Web’ and related technologies. There's really no need for using fancy buzzwords, Semantic Web and its benefit for users and mankind as whole can be described with simple words!

Finally, I think that changing the name will not make any difference. 'Semantic Web' term has been around for too long and it's too late for that. Marketing approach has to be changed too - I agree companies definitely need to pay more attention to the user experience and simplicity. I am trying hard to solve this problem myself with my startup Faviki - in my opinion a social bookmarking with new tagging approach is the key.

Comment from Dan on 2008-05-21

2008-05-21T13:25:22Z

Consumers don't need to understand the lingo of Semantic Web - or even the phrase itself - any more than they needed to understand "spiders" or "page rank algorithms" to benefit from Google's early innovations.

Comment from Vuk Milicic on 2008-05-21

2008-05-21T13:59:35Z

Therefore, I think what we need now is more like web ‘2.5’ then a web 3.0, meaning we have to find an evolutionary step between the two. Reptiles did not evolve directly from the fish, but from amphibians. So, what would be amphibians in the Semantic Web sense? I strongly believe that tags are that connecting link in the evolution. I tried to explain the importance of a tag evolution in my blog post. If you read it, you'll notice I've hardly mentioned the word ‘Semantic Web’ and related technologies.
There's really no need for using fancy buzzwords, Semantic Web and its benefit for users and mankind as whole can be described with simple words!

Comment from andraz on 2008-05-21

2008-05-21T16:58:19Z

I was at the panel. Carla's comment about managing expectations was the most important thing being said. All this companies have to tone down their message just a little bit and many wonderful things can happen, just try not to disappoint the user.

At Zemanta we probably have one of the most user-friendly applications based on semantic technology.

Helps you author better blog posts, with more images, markup, links and tags.

And yes, users don't care. We could provide elaborative semantic markup of the stuff that users add via Zemanta. But users don't want that, users want clean pages and clean HTML (those that edit it themselves). For now.

Try it out at http://www.zemanta.com

Comment from Mark Johnson on 2008-05-21

2008-05-21T17:46:02Z

Powerset and other "semantic" companies have certainly toned down our messaging, but that doesn't stop the press from writing about untenable dichotomies: Google-killer or deadpool! Powerset's ambitions right now are humble. We just want to improve your experience of finding information in and reading Wikipedia articles.

The most important point I've gotten out of this conference so far is that "semantic" is an overused term with many, many, many, many meanings. Post on that sometime in the near future.

Comment from andraz on 2008-05-21

2008-05-21T19:27:15Z

Yeah, media is a problem, but I think you can tame them eventually :).

Probably the easiest thing is showing them something that is not related to search at all... I am sure you have some hot stuff on that also.

Wish you luck!

Comment from Josh Dilworth on 2008-05-21

2008-05-21T22:33:15Z

@Scott just FYI I love your blog and think you should be on the panel the next time we do it! @Mark @Andraz I definitely agree, but as I said on the panel, I remain stubbornly bullish -- there are incremental improvements to be had and these are being made available in the near term. But at the same time, many of these companies are working on major problems, and I think a year from now we'll find ourselves in a very different position. On the panel we talked about partnerships quite a lot -- the sum is greater than the parts, as in the iPhone metaphor in Tom Gruber's talk yesterday (http://tinyurl.com/5dgh9s), or in the example of Project 10X's Semantic Exchange. And I know that Carla is big on this point too -- once we start to see of lot of these companies (and other, non-semantic) meaningfully work together, we'll be able to stitch together an experience for users that approaches the sort of blue-sky opportunity that got (and gets) people so excited in the first place, the media included.