FOAF Yourself - RDF style
I just realized that with all the talk I do - in public and private - about the Semantic Web, I dont even have a link to the Foaf-A-Matic project on my blog.
This was an oversight on my part, as was the fact that I never linked to my FOAF file.
Also an oversight; a link to a particularly good explanation of RDF.
I will give my goofy version of what all this means in a future post. For now, it may be prudent to go to Foaf-A-Matic and get yourself a FOAF file. Place it in the root directory of your site. Pascal’s Wager states that it is better to live as though there is a God and be wrong than it is to live as though there is no God and be wrong.
Deciding to make your FOAF file and plant it now is like this. Better to FOAF than not to FOAF. Plant your seed in the Semantic Web nice and early. I truly believe that the future of the internet lies in the realization of some of the principles behind the Semantic Web, and I see a future where multiple internets, arranged and organized according to personal preference. We are in the midst of a push towards a collaborative internet (Support Open Source!) and a movement towards shared knowledge. By cooperating with each other, we gain freedon. To follow along this path and simultaneously present only a singular structure for data seems a bit odd to me. I should be able to have the internet reflect my interests. I want data organized in a way that best benefits me.
Oddly enough, we can work together in order to achieve the end goal of custom experiences online.
If you are a techie and work with XML, a search for SOAP would return detail about an XML schema before it returned something about glycerin-based cleaning products. If you lived in Boston and searched for pizza, you would see the local places before you saw Pizza King’s Pizza Palace in Pizza, NY. If you were into 80’s music, a search for Poison would bring back sites about the hair band before it told you about strychnine.
Isn’t this the way is should be? 
It is coming. I say that we are better off acting as though there will be a Semantic Web than we are acting as though there will not be. Worst case scenario, we have done some really super-cool work with ontologies and embarked upon a borderline metaphysical effort to bridge the gap between meaning, philosophy, and technology. It’s neat stuff. I get carried away with it, but it is truly the addition of another dimension to the internet. Web 2.0 is a joke to many people. Web 3.0 will not be. It wont be about people connecting to people, it will be about making the internet intelligent. Amazing stuff.
But now, fair reader, I have to run and do some Requirements Documentation. We have engaged a consulting firm to build a Requirements Document for a MOSS implementation that has not undergone a complete Discovery phase. Too late to put the breaks on? I don’ t know. I think so, but it is not my call. Interestingly enough, the person who should have made that call was let go today.
Also interesting, the consulting company calls this engagement a Roadmap Engagement, and counts among their deliverables a “high-level Requirements Document.” What does this mean? Whatever they want it to. Have to watch them. I often find myself in this position, and I am happy to watch so my client does not get bled dry. I am doing Discovery and making sure that the MOSS Requirements do not dictate our system. I want the Requirements to do that, and if MOSS can be the software that is used, fantastic. From what I have seen, it has some amazing business intelligence features. I am not sure I am completely sold on the fact that it is easily renders public-facing websites with branding possibilities that do not cost tremendous amounts of money. I am also not sold on the idea that it can be easily turned into something that a casual web user would know how to use without guidance. We will see.
I have work to do.
Best,
MIT Technical, Boston