Solving the identity crisis

Will the large scale Semantic Web ever happen? As in a significant portion of the web explicitly annotated with classes, taxonomies, properties, even microformats? I'm not holding my breath, and a lot of implicit webbers with me.

Just consider how hard it is to design a sound ontology. How much harder it is to standardize on one ontology. Or to map between ontologies. Then imagine how all web publishers are going to deal with those issues. Hundreds of millions of them, including you and me.

Implicit webbers don't wait for publishers. We like shallow taxonomies and we guess if we need to. And of course we'll accept any help we can get, even if it's labeled "semantic web".

Some of that help may come from OKKAM. These people seem to have found a tractable corner of the Semantic Web. Here's my take on their recipe:

• Forget about classes, taxonomies, properties and description logics and build a service for just identity -- a taxonomy doesn't get flatter than that.
  
• Create a unique ID for Jasper Kamperman. Resist the temptation to classify him as a Person, Male, Musician, Dutchman, Sunnyvale-dweller, Computer Scientist, Openwater Architect. Don't try to maintain his current phone number, address or affiliation. Don't send him email to "update his ecard".
• But do record that jasper@cwi.nl, jasper.kamperman@cwi.nl, jasper.kamperman@idr.nl, jasper.kamperman@reasoning.com, jasper.kamperman@intel.com, Jasper F. Th. Kamperman, Jasper Kamperman, PhD, http://www.linkedin.com/in/jasperk64 , jasperk64 at yahoo dot com, and jasper dot kamperman at openwaternet dot com all refer to the same entity.

The result is a unique ID for each entity and a large set of clues that helps us make the right guess.

I wonder if or when they'll have an OpenSocial adapter .. imagine the possibilities!