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<div>While compiling "
<a href="http://blogs.talis.com/nodalities/2007/07/this_weeks_semantic_web.php">This
Week's Semantic Web</a>" I ran across a couple of things that
aren't particularly new but deserve calling out. These things fit
into the categories of being RDF based, having an app-centric (i.e.
domain-specific, vertical) user-friendly front end, covering a
domain that isn't exclusive to experts in that field, and having
enough API goodness open to third parties to make them available to
non-human agents (HTTP with RDF and/or SPARQL) and hence part of
the semweb at large. 
 
 
<ul>
 <li>
 <a href="http://bitzi.com">Bitzi'</a>s 
 <a href="http://bitzi.com/bitpedia">Bitpedia</a> digital media
 encyclopedia - metadata about binary files on the Internet,
 particularly those available through file-sharing services</li>
 <li>
 <a href="http://www.iterating.com">ITerating</a> - Wiki-based
 Software Guide, directory & reviews of open source and
 commercial software</li>
 <li>
 <a href="http://revyu.com/">Revyu.com</a> - review anything</li>
 <li>
 <a href="http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Semantic_MediaWiki">Semantic
 MediaWiki</a> - what it says on the box</li>
</ul>

 Any more?

In a meeting the other day, 
<a href="http://www.daviderrington.com/">David Errington</a> (
<a href="http://www.talis.com/about/management_team.shtml">Talis
CEO</a>) caught me on the hop somewhat by asking about existing
real-world applications/services. My handwaving answer at the time
was to point to the 
<a href="http://esw.w3.org/topic/SweoIG/TaskForces/CommunityProjects/LinkingOpenData">LinkingOpenData</a>
material. It's a tricky question in general because one of the key
benefits of the Web of Data is that it will support a "
small pieces, loosely joined" style of application
building unlike anything we've seen before (in addition to more
traditional apps). The nearest we currently have is probably the
Web 2.0 mashup as catalogued over on 
<a href="http://programmableweb.com/">ProgrammableWeb</a>, though
the vast majority of these apps are built without using the shared
language of Semantic Web technologies (
<a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/rdf-primer/">RDF</a>). Without this
mashups have effectively to be built as one-offs, filling in points
in the API x API matrix. Atom/RSS does approach being a lingua
franca for metadata-enhanced human-readable content, but doesn't go
anywhere near the problem of integrating data in general.
Even aside from the "
small pieces..." angle, the space is wider than its ever
been. One edge there are knowledge domain expert-oriented apps,
like some of the things around 
<a href="http://esw.w3.org/topic/HCLS">Healthcare and the Life
Sciences</a>. There are at least two major apps (
<a href="http://www.joost.com/">Joost</a> and 
<a href="https://www.garlik.com">Garlik</a>) that use Semantic Web
technologies internally, but don't as yet reveal much to the
outside world in a machine-readable form (I'd be delighted to be
corrected on that, btw). There are systems that use RDF-like models
internally (e.g. Metaweb/
<a href="http://www.freebase.com">Freebase</a>) that are on their
way to becoming fully interlinked members of the semweb at large.
There is a pretty large number of applications that can easily
(even transparently) bridged to the semweb - e.g. 
<a href="https://www.dopplr.com">Dopplr</a> exposes 
<a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/grddl-primer/">GRDDL</a>able 
<a href="http://microformats.org">microformat</a> data (complete
with @profile URIs - bravo!), and many of the mashup APIs can be
mapped as semweb services (leading to more general data "
<a href="http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/~kidehen/?date=2007-03-22">meshups</a>"
as Kingsley calls them).
 
 Of the "small pieces" in the LinkingOpenData cluster, I'm not
sure but I think Revyu.com is the only part with a shiny
app-centric (i.e. domain-specific) front end, as well as using RDF
throughout the back end. The others involve some kind of bridging
from non-RDF data.
 
 David's question wasn't actually so general, he was asking in
the context of a couple of a couple of apps in the pipeline at
Talis (built internally on the 
<a href="http://www.talis.com/platform/">Platform</a>) that would
definitely fit the categories above. Although it's rather a cheesy
marketing trick, I think we should still be able to claim one or
two "firsts" (without too much narrowing of category) despite the
apps mentioned.@en
</div>