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Great post.

One of the questions I find most fascinating is how marketing will evolve to take advantage of the semantic web, whether it's in consumer or B2B plays. I think this is more than a linear extension of how marketers have been optimizing the web today, but something qualitatively different. I suggest that SEO + Semantic Web = SEO++ (after all, it is sort of an object-oriented paradigm shift).

Here are 7 possible missions for "semantic marketing":

1. Marketing becomes the champion of generating the underlying data.
2. Marketing views categorization, metadata, RDF graphs, relevant microformats, etc., as a new kind of market positioning and placement -- "semantic branding", if you will.
3. Marketing takes a much broader view of distribution and promotion of its semantic web data in search engines and vertical networks (SEO++), including the sponsorship or creation of new niche semantic networks.
4. Marketing comes up with new ways to incentivize the conversion of semantic web interactions in real business objectives.
5. Marketing will have a real challenge with tracking and attributing distributed data in the semantic web to measure its impact -- from multi-touch marketing to micro-touch marketing. Hard problem but entrepreneurial ingenuity will prevail.
6. Marketing will want to leverage other people's data in their own value-add mash-ups (interesting "joint venture" semantic data partnerships), as well as for internal-only apps focused on market research and competitive intelligence.
7. Marketing will need to be concerned with brand protection in the semantic web: quality control to watch for bad data, conflicting data, competitive misuse, etc.

If you're interested, http://www.chiefmartec.com/2008/03/marketing-in-th.html is the full post. Would love feedback from other marketers and semantic web afficionados.

But there are other concerns. In the press call, which you can listen to on ReadWriteTalk, our own Marshall Kirkpatrick asked whether the foundation will splinter OpenSocial and Microsoft?

Another concern is that the foundation only complicates OpenSocial. But what is the alternative? As commenter Clay Newton noted:

"...the landscape continues to get more and more complicated. That said, the alternative is to deal with a bunch of closed vendor platforms, which is not any less complicated."

For that observation and for participating in the conversation, Clay you've won a $30 Amazon voucher - courtesy of our competition sponsors AdaptiveBlue and their Netflix Queue Widget.

What other concerns do you have about OpenSocial Foundation?

Here is Mark's full comment, followed by an extra comment he left verifying that Facebook has now fixed the error:

"This flaw has been publicly known for weeks (which I report as an example of how poorly Facebook takes user privacy, not as a correction to your story). Really crazy. They weren't checking user permissions for photo pages. If you could guess the ID of a photo, you could view that photo. Worse, they gave you ways to determine the ID of a recent photo. And once you viewed a private photo in the album, the previous/next links worked, showing you the rest of the private photos in that album!

Here is a tutorial, from late February (AP is reporting that the flaw was fixed, so hopefully this doesn't still work.)"

Comment 2 by Mark:

"Verified that they fixed it:

"The page you requested can not be displayed right now. It may be temporarily unavailable, the link you clicked on may have expired, or you may not have permission to view this page."

BUT you can still see private photos in which you are tagged, even if you were omitted from the permissions list. I created a new album on my wife's account, and blocked all her networks, and all her friends except one (not me). I added one picture of me, then tagged myself in it. On my account, it announced the photo to me with a thumbnail and I was able to view it. At no time did it warn me (on her account) that by tagging the photo I was expanding the permissions on that photo. Not a huge flaw, but still -- if people are going to trust these privacy settings, they need to be bulletproof."

David Dworsky responded: "When will we stop talking about internet content as one thing and TV content as something totally different?" His full comment is below.

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"When will we stop talking about internet content as one thing and TV content as something totally different? People like to watch quality video - it doesn't matter if they use a Mac Book Pro or a Sony Bravia screen. The distribution channel is one thing and the content is another.

To have a rating system that's only based on TV viewers is plain stupid. Some people like to watch on their computer, some like to sit in the TV sofa, some like to use the ipod, some use Youtube - it's the choice of the individual.

To separate the content as TV- versus Internet-video is just an old habit from a business that haven't been fast enough to embrace new technology. It's like saying that the text in a newspaper is more worth than the same text on the newspaper website. Internet fandom is primetime (or at least it should be)."

Oprah image via The Last Podcast

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Nick's comment:

"As soon as the FriendFeed API hits the streets, someone is going to make a widget that pulls FriendFeed comments either to simply be displayed on the post, or to be submitted into the blog's actual comment system, a "FriendFeed Comment to Wordpress Comment Plug-in," for example."

Charlie's comment:

"Hi Sarah and thanks for the links!. Some cool stuff here. Lifestreaming is relatively new and no doubt will see some growth then consolidation. I honestly see it as a way to create MORE readers (Am I the only one that clicks??). Right now, there's a lot of truth to what you're saying. I probably waste a half hour a day on this stuff BUT others are leveraging the various services to promote and obtain viewers. I for one have discovered more great sites in the past few months (particularly through Twitter and Friendfeed) than being 'stuck' in the same reading cycle... and occasionally re-write my blogroll accordingly. We should be keeping an eye on Google Reader. What Google does there next will probably change this landscape."

However commenter Rian from DailySplice.com thinks it should be the other way round: iTunes to become social like MySpace! Rian wrote: "What if the iTunes store was more like MySpace or Last.fm where you were given a little corner of the store and could even promote your favorite bands?"

Here is Rian's full comment:

"Agreed. Last.fm is one of my favs for this. What if you could purchase and sync up your latest playlist onC Last.fm. We're banking on this kind of concept too as we develop our features for podcasts at DailySplice.com.

But I don't think it's time to say goodbye to iTunes. I think it's just time for iTunes to become more social. This seemed like the game plan for Zune when it came out. What if the iTunes store was more like MySpace or Last.fm where you were given a little corner of the store and could even promote your favorite bands? Hmmm... even make commissions off your sales... haha, ok, maybe now I'm dreaming."

Congratulations Aziz, you've won a $30 Amazon voucher - courtesy of our competition sponsors AdaptiveBlue and their Netflix Queue Widget.

"I think that WiFi is in no danger of going away, but the ubiquitous web access is already on our doorstep and it's called WiMax (everyone, chant with me: Xohm. Xohm. Xohm.) The future of web access will be 802.11n in the home and office (assuming it ever gets out of draft!) and WiMax everywhere else.

That said, Xohm is being designed explicitly for the embedded market, so it is possible that our toasters, TVs, and car keys will ultimately be WiMaxed instead of Wified. It really depends on the pricing model, and thats something we just cant predict how will play out yet. WiFi will probably always have an advantage in cost.

I tend to think of wifi and wimax as complementary technologies, however, in much the same way that commuter rail is complementary to a subway system. One is a heavy mover, with high capacity over long distances. The other is a short distance, low capacity transport. The analogy holds pretty well when you look at WiFi and WiMax as well."

Here's Sean's full comment:

"My 'gut feeling' thoughts exactly...good to hear them supported with data!

I'm a great example of the digital native (though I haven't been a teen for some time, I was an early net adopter in the early 90's when I actually was a teen). Like you mentioned, I hardly ever read books. Probably only about one or two a year, and even then they're typically non-fiction as opposed to 'literature'. Magazines? Only during flights.

Despite that, I scored a perfect 6/6 GMAT writing score, and my while I forget the specific verbal vs. quantitative, my overall was in the 97th percentile.

Granted, one could argue I'm missing out on the cultural value associated with great literary works, however because I tend to lean toward heavier reading (quality news, science, etc) I don't think I'm missing out too much with regards to developing or maintaining my reading ability. And because of blogs, forums, and email, I probably write several dozen pages worth of text each week, which is probably more than many members of previous generations can claim!"

I'm all in favor of this, as my twitter musings this morning attest. The Web could be a prime enabler of giving the user (i.e. us!) control over our medical records.

Here is Brad's full comment:

"I was actually in this session as well and a thought kept creeping up in my head. Why can't we do an OpenEMR system like we are doing for authentication (OpenID). Be able to transfer and control your medical record personally instead of having the doctors control it all?

Speaking with Tantek Celik afterwards his thought was that there is nothing we can do in this society since it is controlled by big business & government. But I think it can still be overcome. It might take the right people in the right places but decentralizing this network and giving the power for each American to control their own medical record could ensure higher reliability, less poor diagnoses, and can handle scale."

Image credit: integritas

Check out all the comments in Ten Sites for Finding Wonderful Things if you're interested in discovering more wonderful bricolage websites!

Here is Anton's comment, followed by a video of his app.

"Our screensaver is a visualization of the real time web... more precise a visualization over the blogosphere, real time, as a world globe.

Read more about it here, and look at the Youtube-movie:
http://www.twingly.com/ScreenSaver.aspx

I think it's worth to mentioning!"

"Kinda off-topic...

"First he hands over the biz stuff to Ballmer; squeeze every last drop out of that cash cow please. Then he brought in Ray Ozzie, his cerebral equal and somebody the developers can relate to."

This reminds me of part Dune in which Baron Vladimir Harkonen appointed his vicious nephew Rabban to squeeze Dune for spice and at the same time prepared his other nephew, the bright Feyd-Rautha, to his place as next baron of the house."

Congratulations David, you've won a $30 Amazon voucher - courtesy of our competition sponsors AdaptiveBlue and their Netflix Queue Widget.

Update: David, please contact editor at readwriteweb.com with your real email address :-)

Update 2: Twine founder Nova Spivack has written a response to our post on his blog.

Here is David's full comment:

"Marshall, Marshall, Marshall. You're a great writer, generally right on top of things. Matter of fact, of the Web 2.0 A-list bloggers, you've demonstrated the most knowledge of the Semantic Web. You even get -- which few do -- that recommenders are an important part of a comprehensive solution.

This being said, you're way off on Twine. First, you've been on Twine only since March 7th. Second, you have only three connections, Rafe, Nova (their CEO) and yours truly. As a result, you haven't had a chance to explore Twine for social knowledge sharing. Third, you've subscribed to only three Twines. That's it!! You did choose two of the most active Twines, but you didn't explore how Twine can be used beyond geekdom. In contrast to what Gabe has tried to do, Digg, et al, Twine has a lot of value when exploring broader topics. See the China, Public Policy, and Futures Twines as three examples. Honestly, you need to get a lot more engaged before you can really comment. At this point, you've had minimal engagement. And, as you know, I'm the MOST engaged private beta tester, so I believe I'm in a good position to make an objective observation. (Remember, I was a VP-level analyst at META. So I have the street cred for making objective observations on emerging technologies; I'm not just some blogger or the like.)

In fact, here in Qingdao (China) we're starting to use Twine as a combination social network + social bookmarking site + threaded online discussion group + wiki. We have two groups that are slowly getting engaged with Twine. One is a local ecumenical Christian fellowship for expats, the other (which is much more active at this point) is for the de facto Chamber of Commerce for Westerners living in Qingdao. Although we haven't rolled out Twine for the general membership, the "Chamber" Executive Committee has adopted Twine as its key communications and knowledge sharing tool. Matter of fact, the head (yes, THE head) of one of the largest U.S. operations in China is getting addicted to Twine ... as is his wife!! We've even had the 17 year old adopted daughter of one of our local Kiwis start a Twine which already has among the most members. Started four or so days ago, it's already among the top dozen or so Twines. (It's the Connecting People Together Twine.) And I've even created a TUG (Twine Users Group) for Qingdao which I'll officially launch after we've had a chance to roll out Twine to at least a few hundred fellow expats ... and we'll likely follow with a TUG in Shanghai, too.

To be very frank, I was personally concerned about rolling out Twine to media types such as yourself. It's not ready for prime time, but nobody ever said it was. It's in PRIVATE beta. Hand holding helps ... and I've done a lot of hand holding. But I'm also dealing with a crowd that has NO IDEA what social bookmarking is, what a wiki is. Yet, I/we have demonstrated that Twine has a great deal of utility for newbies; it's not just for semweb geeks.

Unfortunately, you entered Twine just when the UI changed. This was bad timing. The new UI should have been rolled out to the existing private beta testers BEFORE (and NOT concurrently) with letting in selected media personalities. I concur that the UI needs some work, as does the daily e-mail Digest. Hey, it's a work in progress.

But, Marshall, the core tech underneath Twine's hood is what really matters, is the power (and competitive advantage) for Twine. The UI can be improved. I've already seen a lot of improvement in the UI; it will get a lot easier to use.

Without being modest, I can tell you that there are two power users of Twine: Myself and Hrafn Thorisson. (If you check the Explore page, you'll see this.) Both of us are extremely active in two private Twines, the Product Community and Evangelism Twines. We also have a lot of direct discourse with Nova -- "direct" as is by private e-mail. I can tell you first hand that Nova and his team (Peter, Scott, Chris, Jim, James) are highly responsive to our suggestions. Don't be too concerned: When someone needs to piss on Twine, we do the pissing. But they clean up the mess, make Twine better. And they respond in fairly short order, too. Hey, not everything can be changed overnight. Changes, however, do happen on a fairly frequent basis, more so than in any other beta I've been part of.

Marshall, don't give up on Twine. Just watch it, pledge to write another review in July and then another in December. You'll become a true believer over time. BTW, feel free to contact me if you want to toss around any ideas, need uber user feedback. My contact info is on my Twine profile page; don't use the e-mail address that I provide for my R/WW comments. Thanks!!"

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Here is IT's full comment:

"I'm most interested in the level of "Exchange Support" that Apple is really going to be able to build into the new IPhone. As a heavy user of both an IPhone, and a Windows Mobile phone (personal/work), the only way I can see the IPhone even coming close to being comparable to the WM phone (at least in terms of exchange feature sets) is if Apple can completely copy the WM exchange integration. It's not just about mail anymore. I'll need complete integration with my exchange calendar (online free/busy, shared calendars, resource scheduling), access to the Global Address List, as well as my contacts, as well as complete access to my e-mail. AND, all those things will have to work as well as they work on my WM phone. That's a pretty tall order, even with the SDK and the avid (but relatively small) group of apple developers. Additionally, Apple and their carriers (CINGULAR, I'M TALKING TO YOU) will have to put forth a cheaper phone. $299 IPhone that I can't insure and has a more expensive unlimited data plan, or a $49 (or god forbid free) WM6 phone that I can insure for $5 a month, has a cheaper data plan, etc. Which of those costs would you like to try and justify to your CFO? Overall, I just don't think the IPhone, even with all the changes, will ever be thought of as a good WM6 / BlackBerry alternative."

Participate in our poll

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A reminder about how this daily competition works... until at least the end of March we are giving away one $30 Amazon gift voucher every day for the best daily comment. Here's how it works:

2. At the end of each day, the RWW team will select the best comment of the day -- and we'll email that person a US$30 Amazon gift voucher (this will be done in weekly batches).

3. Not only will the best daily comment win a prize, but (in a further effort to extend the conversation), we'll publish it as a separate new post on ReadWriteWeb. So you'll enhance your profile too.

The criteria that the RWW team will use to judge the best daily comment is subjective and flexible. But we'll be looking for characteristics such as: insightful, topical, witty, furthering the conversation.