I started working on a research paper which includes Semantic Web as part of it, and I thought of sharing some excerpts from it. The following two parts will discuss the next evolution of the Web.
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
Web Evolution
Many people agree on Web evolution, but few take it seriously. As a term, "Web evolution" is commonly used. But few people have thoughtfully studied its principles, i.e. why and how the Web evolves. Even after the initiative of Web Science, Web evolution, supposed to be a major branch of Web Science, is still lack of considerable attention. For example, Wikipedia, the most popular online encyclopedia, does not have an entry of Web evolution till now (last checked June 10th, 2008). We need to change this situation.
A Brief History
One of the early attempts of formalizing the concept of evolution on the Web was done by Tim Berners-Lee, the father of World Wide Web. In 1998, he explained the importance of evolvabilityof Web technology. In short, we need to preserve spaces for Web technologies so that they can be continuously upgraded to compromise new requests. According to Tim, "evolvability" is one of the two fundamental goals of all W3C technologies (the other goal is "Interoperability"). Berners-Lee also emphasized that the key evolutionary issues at the meantime should be language evolution and data evolution. Within the context of his discussion, the term "evolvable" was actually closer to the meaning of "extensible" than the meaning of "evolutionary".
A more recent discussion about Web evolution was at the panel "Meaning on the Web: Evolution or Intelligent Design?" at Edinburgh, Unite Kingdom during the WWW-2006 conference. This panel invited five well-known web researchers, Ron Brachman, Dan Connolly, Rohit Khare, Frank Smadja, and Frank van Harmelen. In the description of this panel, it was written as follows.
"should meaning on the Web be evolutionary, driven organically through the bottom-up human assignment of tags? Or does it need to be carefully crafted and managed by a higher authority, using structured representations with defined semantics?"
The evolution of meaning specifications on the Web is a central issue of Web evolution; and this issue is particularly critical to the vision of Semantic Web. But this panel still did not touch the very core of Web evolution, i.e. what the essential driving force of web evolution is and how this force really drives the Web forward.
Very recently at WWW 2008, we finally have a workshop organized by the WSRI that focused solely on the study of Web evolution. Nevertheless is it a big step forward, most of the accepted papers in the workshop still focuses on describing the various phenomena of Web technology evolution rather than digging the fundamental reasons that drive the progress of Web evolution and how these reasons may drive the Web forward in the future.
Formal Study of Web Evolution
To the best of my knowledge, the article "Evolution of World Wide Web, a historical view and analogical study" is the first attempt to explain the essence of Web evolution on the ground of a theoretical study. The first draft of Part 1 was posted at January 12, 2007, and the first draft ofPart 2 was posted at April 27, 2007. The Part 3 is still in progress. The Part 1 describes an analogical comparison between the growth of World Wide Web and the growth of humans. The Part 2 makes a scientific abstraction of the analogy discussed in Part 1 and concludes a view of Web evolution by two postulates and seven corollaries. Furthermore, in Part 2 we have also applied the newly abstracted Web-evolution theory to predict the path towards the next-generation Web (or Web 3.0 in someone's mind).
We have taken a great deal of effort to write and revise the articles. But it is simply too broad and sophisticated project to make it perfect in short time. Hence at the same time, I have authored a compact series about Web evolution in ten installments here at Thinking Space (the whole list of the post is attached at the end of this post). This series is more updated than the original article.
Brief Summary of the Web Evolution Theory
If World Wide Web does evolve, we believe that the progress of Web evolution must obey the general law of Transformation of Quantity into Quality, which is a general law of any evolutionary process in the world. In particular to the case of Web evolution, the general law is shown as a spiral advancement that consists of unstopping quantitative accumulation of Web resources and successive qualitative stage transitions. On the Web, whenever the quantity of Web resources reaches a certain level so that the amount becomes too many to be efficiently operated by the Web resource operating mechanism at the meantime, the Web will demand an upgrade of Web resource operating mechanism (a qualitative transition) to ensure the continuity of Web evolution. After the qualitative transition is done, the Web then start a new round of quantitative accumulation of Web resources at a higher level. The transition from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0 is a typical example of this theory.
Although the general law of Transformation of Quantity into Quality explains the path of Web evolution, it does not explain the reasons beneath the unstopping quantitative accumulation of Web resources. In other words, why does such a unstopping quantitative accumulation of Web resources happen and never stop? The answer to this question is related to the human aspect of World Wide Web. To the end, World Wide Web is a project produced by humans, contributed by humans, and serving humans.
The fundamental power of unstopping human contribution to the Web is laid on a nature of mankind---the desire of being known when alive and still being remembered after death. Human is a social creature. The invention of World Wide Web helps satisfy the deep concern of humanity itself. This fulfillment is the fundamental momentum that drives the resource accumulation on the Web.
This theory of Web evolution is not flawless. Many arguments might be debatable and amendable. The main purpose of this work is to bring the world a fresh new vision of Web evolution. In fact, Web evolution is not just about the Web, it is indeed about all humans and our society.
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
Tech and The Wild Wild West
What an exhausting week it was .... Even the long weekend didn't help. We, the mighty SEVians, decided to do a few things last week. Some of us (he he he) were forced to march in the Merdeka parade, but ended up loving every minute of it (I hope).
The rest of us management people, decided to head down to Eagle Ranch in PD for 3 days of team building and discussions. I've got some pics from the PD trip, but not from the guys who went marching. Hopefully someone will put that up.
My quarters .....
Trying not to faint from exhaustion
... more later ...
The rest of us management people, decided to head down to Eagle Ranch in PD for 3 days of team building and discussions. I've got some pics from the PD trip, but not from the guys who went marching. Hopefully someone will put that up.
My quarters .....
Trying not to faint from exhaustion... more later ...
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
welcome to a world of differences
It's funny when you think about it. There's this story about a guy who gets his dreams shattered every he tries to do his best. Most of you Metallica fans would have to listened to 'Unforgiven'. I'm not sure how many actually understood the song.
It tells the story of a young man who tried all his life to be better and achieve something, but he was constantly thrown back down by people who did not understand him or what he wanted to do. All he wanted was to do the best he can. He died a bitter old man.
Well, back to the earlier guy's story : He had ideas way ahead of anyone's time, but everytime he tried, he was used, abused and spat on. Every time, he got back up and said to himself, "It's okay there'll be other opportunities", but time and again, the same happened.
This time, he saw a light at the end of the tunnel. He got that chance, and he grabbed it. But somewhere along the way, there were again those, who couldn't stand the fact that this guy was someone who wanted to do something for himself, tried to bring him down. These are the people who are supposed to his compadres, his colleagues, his companions in the same struggle. These are the people who won' be affected in any way by his progress.
What is he supposed to do? Fall down again?
No, this time, he's not giving up his right to a better future. This time those who do him wrong must pay.
Well, I don't get something. If there is someone who is willing to sacrifice everything to chase his dreams, why are there people who feel threatened by it? These are the people who are too lazy to put real effort into their labours, choosing rather to suck up. Choosing rather to step down on others. Choosing rather to climb over his head. Choosing to bring him down, instead of trying to better themselves.
Sometimes, no, most of the time, I get confused. Why most people just have to behave like protozoas?
To those who read this and understand, you know who you are. And trust me, God may be forgiving but not this not-so-young-man. "Don't wake the sleeping worm", said Thror to Bilbo,"that worm is an awfully revengeful dragon".
It tells the story of a young man who tried all his life to be better and achieve something, but he was constantly thrown back down by people who did not understand him or what he wanted to do. All he wanted was to do the best he can. He died a bitter old man.
Well, back to the earlier guy's story : He had ideas way ahead of anyone's time, but everytime he tried, he was used, abused and spat on. Every time, he got back up and said to himself, "It's okay there'll be other opportunities", but time and again, the same happened.
This time, he saw a light at the end of the tunnel. He got that chance, and he grabbed it. But somewhere along the way, there were again those, who couldn't stand the fact that this guy was someone who wanted to do something for himself, tried to bring him down. These are the people who are supposed to his compadres, his colleagues, his companions in the same struggle. These are the people who won' be affected in any way by his progress.
What is he supposed to do? Fall down again?
No, this time, he's not giving up his right to a better future. This time those who do him wrong must pay.
Well, I don't get something. If there is someone who is willing to sacrifice everything to chase his dreams, why are there people who feel threatened by it? These are the people who are too lazy to put real effort into their labours, choosing rather to suck up. Choosing rather to step down on others. Choosing rather to climb over his head. Choosing to bring him down, instead of trying to better themselves.
Sometimes, no, most of the time, I get confused. Why most people just have to behave like protozoas?
To those who read this and understand, you know who you are. And trust me, God may be forgiving but not this not-so-young-man. "Don't wake the sleeping worm", said Thror to Bilbo,"that worm is an awfully revengeful dragon".
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
shameless advertising ...
Alright, the following is a shameless effort at advertising :
<< If you guys notice at the orange bar on top, you should see a link to 'webbing exchange', SKALI's cost effective web hosting solution. You guys check it out, especially the 'no frills hosting option'. Click on it, people and help me make some $$$. Along the way, you might find some really good hosting offers there. >>
end of shameless ad.
erm ...if the link doesn't work (dumb css ...), here it is : http://www.webbingxchange.com
<< If you guys notice at the orange bar on top, you should see a link to 'webbing exchange', SKALI's cost effective web hosting solution. You guys check it out, especially the 'no frills hosting option'. Click on it, people and help me make some $$$. Along the way, you might find some really good hosting offers there. >>
end of shameless ad.
erm ...if the link doesn't work (dumb css ...), here it is : http://www.webbingxchange.com
Monday, August 18, 2008
designer vs. layman
hmm ... the graphic below might remind you designers out there what
happens when someone with nearly 0 IT background (is there such a thing anymore?) talks to you ... image courtesy of www.maninblue.com
happens when someone with nearly 0 IT background (is there such a thing anymore?) talks to you ... image courtesy of www.maninblue.com
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