If HTML is the way developers get information into Google’s search engine, meta data is the way developers will get data into Facebook’s semantic search engine which will be based on the company’s “Open Graph”. Through the use of easy to implement plugins, Facebook is rapidly collecting structured data on every user. Facebook has also upgraded their API to make building on top of the Open Graph a much easier process. What’s pretty clear is that it’s an attempt to tackle the residing search giant.
While the concept of the semantic web has been around for years, there are very few companies who have a shot at building a semantic search engine. Companies like Adaptive Blue and others have attempted to implement this but none of them have the scale that Facebook has. As Mark Zuckerberg said on stage an hour ago, by the end of the day Facebook should have more than 1 billion likes and that data will grow exponentially.
It’s an insanely ambitious project but Facebook has two things to their advantage: a user base of more than 400 million users and a suite of easy to implement social services which will help collect structured data from around the web. Overnight, Facebook has essentially launched the semantic search engine of the future. We’ll have to wait and see how Google, the current search incumbent, will attempt to compete in this space.
There are a number of standards that have been created in the past as some developers have pointed out, microformats being the most widely accepted version, however the reduction of friction for implementation means that Facebook has a better shot at more quickly collecting the data. The race is on for building the semantic web and now that developers and website owners have the tools to implement this immediately.
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I'm not sure what this semantic data meme, we already have a Web of Data. It's called "The Web".
Comment by Jon — April 21, 2010 @ 1:05 pm
Metadata is always the answer. Even in html!! Semantic search is the Holy Grail of information delivery. Nonsense in, nonsense out. But also, some sense in leads often to nonsense out. Reminds me of Russell and Whitehead's theory of types and representing all mathematics as logical systems. EHNNT! Sorry, does not compute.
Comment by David Sherr — April 21, 2010 @ 1:10 pm
The problem of exhaustive search is that it is a problem at best Order(nlogn) on just items taken two at a time. 1 billion people and how many concepts??
Comment by David Sherr — April 21, 2010 @ 1:14 pm
can anyone tells me what is a semantic search? I am a bit confuse by it.
Comment by jacobian — April 21, 2010 @ 1:44 pm
First Google seeks to take over the planet, now FaceBook. where will it all go?
Comment by Byron Hinterland Acc — April 21, 2010 @ 2:37 pm
When you do search as Facebook seems to want to do it, using structures imposed on the data, you will always be limited to outcomes which extend from those foundations.
The real holy grail is correlation. That is what humans do. They free associate. They create new chains of fragments. They banish other people's structure (and prejudices) and cause new ones to appear.
Anyone can re order a list of resources (ABC instead of BAD) but dragging order out of fragment chaos is the future.
Comment by Carl Wimmer — April 21, 2010 @ 5:02 pm
A point in all directions is no point at all.
Facebook is mob sourcing of the least order. This may make money but as a good search resource it will be an impoverished intellectual ghetto environment. Searching out heavy weights who really put in the leg work to know their topic and then following their tweets or blog links will get you much more stimulating reading materials.
Or just learn to hone your search term skills. I am afraid facebook is likely to produce a complex semantic vacuum.
Comment by raycote — April 21, 2010 @ 9:47 pm
Facebook will rule the web soon. Everything are becoming more social and engaging day by day.
Comment by Mahmud Ahsan — April 22, 2010 @ 6:34 am
O(nlogn) isn’t going to be the fastest to be processed, but with computer power these days.. shouldn’t be an issue
— especially if they are calculating behind the scenes and storing the results in a database to the end user get’s their data FAST (because if a web page doesn’t load in less than 2 seconds.. I close out).
Comment by Arsham Mirshah — April 22, 2010 @ 7:52 am
While I agree that we'll be able to gain amazing data from OpenGraph's implementation, we'll need to see the contribution to semantic technologies. As we know, semantics really is just the study of how language fits together. Semantics often yield an ontology, or a "shared vocabulary, which can be used to model a domain — that is, the type of objects and/or concepts that exist, and their properties and relations." (F. Arvidsson and A. Flycht-Eriksson. Ontologies) The magic of semantics is that it will enable engines to both better understand the information they index (so we will understand the words on objects on a page rather than just build an index of words) AND will enable us to better understand the questions you're asking.
OpenGraph will be a cool first step in understanding associations among people and will enable some pretty cool analysis of content to begin to determine and build an ontology.
Stefan Weitz
Director, Bing Search
Comment by Stefan Weitz — April 23, 2010 @ 5:40 pm
The problem with the Semantic Web is often to be found in the semantics. The aspirations of the semantic web have to do with increasing data accessibility by restructuring architecture to emphasise relevance as a criteria for search. Teaching machines how to make meaningful distinctions between data sets as well as operating within a more open and interoperable framework are not trivial objectives. But the Semantic Web is not being imposed by Berner-Lee or anyone else, rather it is a move to arrive at a consensus as to how we want our data organised on the web.
Comment by Igor Goldkind — April 28, 2010 @ 11:32 pm
It's good that there is finally a viable competitor with Google. Google has an extreme monopoly on the internet.
Comment by Nick — July 6, 2010 @ 11:34 am
the biggest problem with the Semantic Web is that it’s as boring as dry toast. It’s all about plumbing and widgets and data standards, all of which have names like FOAF and TOTP and SIOC and whatnot. It’s right off the dork-o-meter. The Lone Gunmen from The X-Files would have a hard time getting interested in this stuff, let alone anyone who isn’t married to their slide rule or their pocket protector. The things that the Semantic Web would make possible are fascinating and in some cases very appealing — it’s just getting there that’s the hard part.
Comment by Tim — September 29, 2010 @ 4:56 am
i'll believe it when i see it.
Comment by john — January 18, 2011 @ 12:37 pm
Interesting, would not have thought about it that way myself.
Comment by Foreclosures — June 17, 2011 @ 1:45 pm
I am so curious about the Semantic Search Engine
Comment by Bejubel Market — September 30, 2011 @ 7:05 am
wow nice information
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