Technology

Web 3.0: Will Europe Overtake the U.S.? Part 2

Written by Gaurav Bhola, MSM, Managing Editor & Community Manager on August 3, 2007 10:11 am EST

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

The ones who define the standard will create advantage in the marketplace for their companies. The Semantic Web will let the computer pool unstructured information across the internet. At present, the web content is readable by people not computers. In the world of Semantic Web, content will be located, shared, and aggregated by computers. Currently, these tasks are performed by people, but that will change once Semantic Web becomes the standard.

The concept for the Semantic Web was the brainchild of Tim Berners-Lee, also the creator of the World Wide Web. He founded the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) in 1994 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Laboratory for Computer Science [MIT/LCS] in association with CERN, with support from the European Commission, and DARPA. He envisions that all man’s knowledge will be available on-line. It will connect people in real time like never before. Also, it will allow people to connect unrelated data in innovative ways. There are huge benefits for every field from medical, military, to business.

Unlike the U.S., Europe has a tradition of pushing innovation from the top-down. However, the U.S. stimulates ingenuity, innovation, and creativity in the opposite direction from the bottom- up, where garage startups like Myspace, Digg, and others rule.

So far, the U.S. is ahead in developing nearly all of the Semantic Web products found in the marketplace. It is difficult to see Europe succeeding in its quest to outpace the U.S. for three reasons:

Most of the research is funded by governments
Most companies expect and rely on government funding
After setting the foundations for Semantic Web, the devising of applications for the commercial marketplace are in government control

Herein, in order for Europe to win the race, it must change the way it prepares for the race.

Conclusion.

Trackback URL for this post: http://www.gimmiethescoop.com/web-30-will-europe-overtake-the-us-part-2/trackback