Excerpt from:  Into the MyST
.
March 22, 2004

Needed: Semantic Web

Jim Rapoza made some good points concerning the emerging need for semantic content. He's probably only seeing the tip of the iceberg in terms of semantic adoption. I believe that semantic tagging is occurring at a much greater adoption rate than known (or detectable) simply because if semantic systems work well, you hardly know what their architecture is.

RSS is a good example - most of us refer to content syndication as RSS. This is a technically incorrect description since it is used for hundreds of implementations that include things as diverse as gas pump pricing updates and knowledge syndication between enterprise portals; both are cases where newsreaders and humans are not involved.

In my view, RSS has reached mainstream use in cases where it is not referred to as RSS.

"The big obstacle to reaching the Semantic Web is that the semantic tags need to be added to give meaning to all the content. Content providers need to start using RDF and OWL when creating their content. As of now, few do because few are aware of the benefits." -- Jim Rapoza

Indeed - we sell a product called MyST SmartSpace™ that provides a Web services framework for extending RSS (and RDF) feeds to Microsoft Office documents.

MyST SmartSpace™ is a service built on MySmartChannels™ that provides a unified information space for collections of content such as RSS feeds. MyST SmartSpace™ makes it possible to search and discover RSS items through Microsoft Office applications such as Microsoft Word® and Microsoft Outlook®. RSS feeds are used to create a unified information resource that integrates RSS items with Microsoft Office 2003 Smart Tags and Microsoft Office Research Task panes.
Syndication OptionsRSS (Rich Site Summary) Feed Atom Feed OPML (Outline Processor Language) Feed MYST-ML (MyST Markup Language) Content Feed MS-Office Smart Tag Subscription