Explorer's Guide to the Semantic Web

Rating:
Summary: An excellent introduction
Review: Curious about the future of the web? Interested for ideas on what the web will be able to do and how it will be doing it? Curious about the technologies being used to develop the semantic web? Looking for ideas from future technologies that you can apply and use today in your applications? Want to know just what the heck the Semantic Web is all about? In easy-to-read, clear, not-over-your-head technical descriptions, Thomas B. Passin's "Explorer's Guide to the Semantic Web" answers those questions, and more.

If the Semantic Web is mostly a new topic for you, as it was for me before reading this book, Passin's book provides a strong base of knowledge and understanding of the emerging Semantic Web concepts and technologies, including describing data with RDF, navigating information with topic maps, annotation, searching, ontology, semantic web services and intelligent agents.

If you're already quite familiar with the Semantic Web and the technologies behind it, while this book might help you to develop a more complete picture of how the technologies and ideas work into the bigger picture, you may prefer a more technical book with larger, more detailed descriptions and examples.


Rating:
Summary: Fascinating introduction to RDF, OWL, Web Services
Review: I'm not usually a fan of "explorer's guides", but this book is different. Technical books either cover how things are done, or why they are done. Most often it's about the 'how', and explorer's books just spread a thinner 'how to' over lots of topics. The value of this book is in the perspective it provides, the 'why', as opposed to just a 'how to'.

It covers both how and why for RDF, OWL, Web Services, Agents and a number of other topics. And gives you a complete perspective for the entire field. Of course, what you don't get is a complete how-to guide on any one of these topics. Which is fine by me.

I recommend this book for anyone who knows nothing about these technologies, but wants a perspective on the entire field. That's not something you are going to find in reference books on each of these individual subjects. Not that I have been able to find a good book on RDF.

Rating:
Summary: Science Fiction or a possible future?
Review: The semantic web is an intelligent web, that is, a web that can be intelligently used by computers. There are two things you need to know about the semantic web. First, it doesn't exist. Second, it may never exist. If this isn't enough information for you, and you want to look at what the future may hold in the area of an intelligent web, then I can't think of a better way to get an introduction to the technologies and ideas that may be part of the semantic web than by reading this book.

The author of the book takes the layers of the semantic web as proposed by the W3C and looks at each one in turn, skipping over the familiar XML and XML schema layers. The author starts with the RDF layer and gives one of the best explanations of RDF and RDF schema that you will find. RDF is the potential meta-data language of the semantic web and the author makes it clear and understandable. Other than XML, RDF is the most real layer of the W3C layer cake so this section is also the most accessible. The next chapter delves into ontology which is vaguer and less clearly defined. The chapter on web services seems a bit unnecessary except as how they fit into the semantic web. A chapter on how intelligent agents may work is included. The last section deals with how information may be verified for truthfulness and authenticity.

If you are interested in RDF then you may want this book just for that section. If you are interested in what the semantic web might look like then this book may be of interest. If you are looking for practical programming samples or ways to build intelligent agents then this isn't the book for you. This is an explorer's guide for those having no fear to tread into unknown waters. This part of the web is still uncharted but this book will help you learn what technologies may be used to fill in the missing pieces of the map.

Rating:
Summary: A mixed bag...
Review: This book is a bit of a mixed bag for me. The book's organization, content, and layout were well thought out. There are excellent high

level explanations of RDF, OWL, and other Semantic Web concepts. This is all well and good, but it fails with respect to one major point:

what exactly am I supposed to be exploring? The Semantic Web as described in the book sounds great... but there are more technologies

required to make it work than those described in this book. The most telling thing in this book is the fact that most of the technologies

are already available, smoe in limited form, some better defined, and yet, the author has difficulty coming up with practical applications

for almost any of it, outside of the passing mention of RSS, and an appendix detailing Friend of a Friend (FOAF).

Bottom line: if you're looking for a good, high level explanation of the various technologies, this a very good book to read. If you're

looking for something that can provide you with a springboard to develop ideas for the Semantic Web, this is definitely not the book for you.