Presented @ SemTech, June 23, 2010, presentation available on SlideShare

Much of the effort in semantic representation has focused on annotating content. Discussions have centered on whether to use a folksonomy or an expert-created shared ontology. The folksonomy route produces only semi-structured data and the expert route can’t keep pace with the rate of new information generated on the Web. We need alternative strategies that harness the power of many non-technical contributors while providing individualized solutions.

In this presentation, we’ll present thought networking as a consumer-directed approach that leverages consumers in a novel way. Under this framework, semantic networks are constructed in real time, based directly on consumer interactions. As software agents interact with the semantic data and the Web, formerly unstructured sources are annotated with the semantics that are provided by consumers. In this way, consumer-directed semantic networking can provide a wealth of knowledge models and semantically annotated content to build the Semantic Web.

This presentation will address the following topics:

• Reviews some of the challenges with content-directed semantic representation
• Introduces thought networking as a complementary, consumer-directed approach
• Discusses the technical feasibility of consumer-directed approaches, using real consumer-created networks and data from our consumer applications
• Presents the benefits and trade-offs of consumer-directed approaches
• Demonstrates real-world applications of thought networking as a consumer-directed approach