Tim Berners-Lee, the top candidate for “inventing the internet”, noted the coming power of the semantic web in a recent interview. Berners-Lee gave the following provocative example of the kind of functionality we’ll see when our online data stream starts to link with other data, and applications are built that can leverage all this new connectivity:

“Imagine if two completely separate things — your bank statements and your calendar — spoke the same language and could share information with one another. You could drag one on top of the other and a whole bunch of dots would appear showing you when you spent your money.
“If you still weren’t sure of where you were when you made a particular transaction, you could then drag your photo album on top of the calendar, and be reminded that you used your credit card at the same time you were taking pictures of your kids at a theme park.

These technologies are not far away, and in fact it is conceivable that the above application will be available within a few years using some form of mashup of QuickBooks, Flickr, and a calendar program with a robust API. However the full blown semantic web that Berners-Lee envisions is likely several years away, as data portability, tagging, mashups, and general web development mature into the new internet mix.

Critics of the semantic web as the next big thing may point to heavily funded semantic search startup Powerset which showed early promise for delivering remarkable search results from a very powerful natural language interface, but has so far failed to deliver on the promises and appears to be suffering from management and technology challenges.

Berners-Lee Interviewed by Times Online