The Noisy Channel

As Paul Miller notes, “the Cloud” is increasingly prevalent in tech conversation these days. As if “cloud computing” weren’t a fuzzy enough term, now we have the “data cloud” which, if I understand Paul correctly, may just be a rebranding of the “semantic web” (itself a bit fuzzy for my tastes). Although it’s not clear to me from the article to what extent the “data cloud” represents a commodified data repository vs. a common framework to link everyone’s data using open standards.

I suppose I’ve been in technology long enough that I shouldn’t be making fun of buzzwords, especially when the movement to the cloud represents a real and positive phenomenon. But the semantic web needs more than rebranding. A quick search turned up this post from last year that lists what Nova Spivack identified as barriers to the adoption of the semantic web:

1. A lack of tools
2. Scaling challenges (what if you want to store a trillion+ triples?)
3. Vision issues (how can we define a practical vision, for the low-hanging fruit?)
4. Inadequate Content (not enough semantic data available)
5. No killer apps
6. Market education

One year later, I’m not sure we’re that much farther along.