Episode #80 – The Promise of Structured Data

Thanks Suze, actually one of your posts was the inspiration for the last time I talked about this topic (http://mediadriving.com/2009/05/20/episode-65-beyond-the-page/) so I figured you’d be into it! I actually hadn’t seen TBL’s TED talk on this but I’ve certainly read stuff he’s said on this topic in the past but I’ll definitely check that out, thanks!

I think it’s an increasingly important thing to think about as we beyond the fascination of being able to talk to people all over the world… it’s great and wonderful that we can connect with people in Lapland or our favorite grade school bully, but what does it get us? I know the Facebook and other folks are thinking a lot about the ‘social graph,’ who we interact with, as key to our behavior and potential our ability to find useful information and things. But I think that’s only part of the picture. I go back to the idea of social semantics, tying things together through shared interest that might not even be openly expressed. I go back to my last.fm neighbors, a completely different group from my last.fm friends — my friends are the people I ‘know’, whereas my neighbors are the ones I’ve been grouped with based on similar habits. It’s great to get a recommendation from a friend, but frankly it’s even better to get a recommendation about music from 50 people who like similar music to you. THAT’S just part of the power of semantic organization.

Anyway, yes, there’s still tonnes to think about and talk about with this stuff, for sure!