ReadWriteWeb

We've chronicled semantic web service Twine's birth, checkered youth, and recent woes in terms of traffic waning and criticism waxing.

We've been given screencasts of the new version of this knowledge management application - screencasts of both the consumer- and developer-facing facets of the site. Take a look, and let us know if the new Twine lives up to expectations. This new version, we are told, will be live by the end of the year.

Since it was first unveiled to ReadWriteWeb back in October 2007, Semantic Web application Twine has traveled a rocky road. The product is a knowledge management service, in practical terms similar to social bookmarking site Delicious. However, almost from the start there have been vocal critics of Twine.

The latest critique is a scathing post by Semantic Web consultant Greg Boutin, entitled Twine in Freefall?. Boutin argues that Twine's traffic has taken a dive recently. We followed up with Twine founder Nova Spivack for his response. He admits that traffic has declined "20-25%," but says that Twine is focusing on an all-new version of its product.

Nova Spivack's semantic web company Twine is developing a free service to write and host semantic ontologies; the classification trees that enable machines to put concepts in topical context. Ready to play Aristotle and create an ontology of cheese, model airplanes, global anti-hunger organizations or any other topic?

What blogging was to publishing, a simple tool that made far more people able to participate, Twine's new ontology writing and hosting service could be to the act of teaching machines about new topics.

In this article, we'll analyze the trends and technologies that power the Semantic Web. We'll identify patterns that are beginning to emerge, classify the different trends, and peak into what the future holds.

In a recent interview Tim Berners-Lee pointed out that the infrastructure to power the Semantic Web is already here. ReadWriteWeb's founder, Richard MacManus, even picked it to be the number one trend in 2008. And rightly so. Not only are the bits of infrastructure now in place, but we are also seeing startups and larger corporations working hard to deliver end user value on top of this sophisticated set of technologies.

When Twine announced itself to the world exactly one year ago, it claimed to be "the first mainstream Semantic Web application". However despite raising millions of dollars in its quest to bring the Semantic Web to the mainstream, Twine has been beset by usability and performance issues in its beta period. Our own Marshall Kirkpatrick wrote probably the most brutal review. The post title said it all: Twine Disappoints After Semantic Web Hype.

However Twine has just launched publicly, confident that it is ready for prime time. I spoke with Twine founder and Semantic Web proponent Nova Spivack today to find out what's changed, who's been using Twine up till now, and where the service is headed in the future.

The Economist published a short article about the Semantic Web today, picking up on apps we've covered here many times - like Reuters Open Calais, Twine, Hakia and AdaptiveBlue. But one app right at the end caught my eye, as I'd not heard of it before: Qitera. Its homepage describes it as "a next-generation information engine - a semantic web service that connects everything you know to everything you read." The company is German, but based in San Francisco. Qitera is currently in private beta, so it's hard to know what this app does. But it sounds a lot like Twine.

In this article, we'll analyze the trends and technologies that power the Semantic Web. We'll identify patterns that are beginning to emerge, classify the different trends, and peak into what the future holds.

In a recent interview Tim Berners-Lee pointed out that the infrastructure to power the Semantic Web is already here. ReadWriteWeb's founder, Richard MacManus, even picked it to be the number one trend in 2008. And rightly so. Not only are the bits of infrastructure now in place, but we are also seeing startups and larger corporations working hard to deliver end user value on top of this sophisticated set of technologies.

Today Marshall Kirkpatrick posted a less than favorable review of Twine, the semantic web knowledge management system that is currently in private beta. Marshall made some great points; and ultimately his post will serve as both excellent feedback for Twine's developers and a wakeup call that this Semantic Web stuff is hard. However Twine should also be encouraged that a couple of their early beta users jumped to the product's defence.

Twine is the most hyped semantic app of the season and recently opened up for some press previews. General availability of this smart, social bookmarking and research tool may come in a matter of weeks.

If that's the case, it will probably be too soon. Twine has some major shortcomings that I think are going to drastically hinder the service's adoption. Perhaps unsurprisingly, those shortcomings come down to usability and performance. Hopefully these problems will be resolved, but it isn't going to be easy.

Radar Networks, the home of the eagerly awaited semantic web app Twine, will announce on Monday that it's closed another round of funding, including a major investment from the fund lead by Ross Levinsohn, the man who bought MySpace while at Fox.

Super-sleuth Dan Primack over at PE Hub dug up the early news about the investment and Chris Morrison at Venture Beat says Velocity Interactive Group and a number of other investors are putting in money in the $15 to $20 million range.

The Semantic Web has been in the making for some time and people think it is nearing maturity. We have written about this trend extensively, with our two most notable posts being an analysis of the challenges of the classic bottom-up approach and the promise of the new top-down one. Regardless of how the Semantic Web will come about, for it to flourish it needs to hit the mainstream. There is no way that consumers will appreciate the elegance and mathematical soundness of RDF and OWL. People don't care about math, they care about utility and even more, about fun. What the Semantic Web needs, then, is a killer app.