The Semantic Web: A Guide to the Future of XML, Web Services, and Knowledge Management (Paperback)

~ (Author), Leo J. Obrst (Author), Kevin T. Smith (Author) "Nothing is more frustrating than knowing you have previously solved a complex problem but not being able to find the document or note that specified..." (more)
Key Phrases: ontology spectrum, corporate ontology, virtual knowledge base, Tim Berners-Lee, Front Royal, Resource Description Framework (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review

"...It is perfectly pitched at the level of computer-literate managers..." (British Journal of Healthcare Computing, February 2004)

"...It is perfectly pitched at the level of computer-literate managers..." -- British Journal of Healthcare Computing, February 2004

Product Description

* "The Semantic Web is an extension of the current Web in which information is given
* well-defined meaning, better enabling computers and people to work in cooperation."-Tim Berners-Lee, Scientific American, May 2001
* This authoritative guide shows how the Semantic Web works technically and how businesses can utilize it to gain a competitive advantage
* Explains what taxonomies and ontologies are as well as their importance in constructing the Semantic Web
* Companion Web site includes further updates as the framework develops and links to related sites

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 312 pages
• Publisher: Wiley (May 30, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0471432571
• ISBN-13: 978-0471432579
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.3 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #439,096 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Mediocre at best, August 17, 2004

By	David Moore - See all my reviews

Lots on XML, little on the Semantic Web. Not clear what audience the book is geared towards.

For managers the book is too heavy on the technical details of XML and XML Schema. For developers and architects who would actually want to implement a semantic application there is too little substance on ontologies, semantic web, semantic web services or OWL to be of any use.

Many chapters (and the book in general) are poorly organized. For a much better (and more practical) explanation of the key concepts check out the recently released "Explorer's Guide to the Semantic Web".

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Too high-level and dated to be very useful, May 20, 2006

By	calvinnme "Texan refugee" (Fredericksburg, Va) - See all my reviews (TOP 10 REVIEWER)

The book throws around all of the right buzzwords: ontologies, XML, KIF, taxonomies, metadata, etc. However, it never even properly defines these terms or organizes the information. If you already understand what the semantic web is, the book makes perfect sense but you don't learn anything new. If you don't already understand what the semantic web is, you won't be able to make sense of the author's high level descriptions and diagrams and you won't learn anything either. You can go to Wikipedia and probably get better explanations of most of the terminology. For example the Wikipedia definition of ontology from a computer science perspective is : "In computer science, an ontology is a data model that represents a domain and is used to reason about the objects in that domain and the relations between them." Why can't the author just SAY that??? Instead he wanders all over the map with a kind of philosophical musing about ontologies, and then proceeds to dissect a human resources ontology without ever properly defining why this model is useful in terms of the semantic web and what makes this model an ontology in the first place. The whole book is like this.
The only reason I give it three stars is that there is useful albeit poorly organized information in here, and if you do know what the semantic web is and you have to present the information to management you can use the individual pieces of the book to probably stitch together a pretty good introductory presentation ... providing you already know what you are doing.
However, I really recommend the book "The Semantic Web Primer" instead. It is more technical and better organized with much clearer explanations.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars low signal to noise, August 25, 2005

By	George Herson "web programmer" (Stamford, CT USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Painstakingly, in a literal sense, read from cover to cover without learning much about semantic description and search (more pedestrian XML technologies, eg, XPath were covered well). Some of it, eg, on Topic Maps, is impenetrable. Very light on interesting and compelling usage and how-to of the more ambitious, semantic technologies that are the reason most would buy a book of this title.

And so, unfortunately, I agree with the negative assessments already given here: little practical information for implementers and on the contrary, the considerable time spent in attempts to decipher will not be justified, in my experience, with their pay off in knowledge that is useful or memorable.

To be fair, part of the problem, from what I gather by its absense in the book, is that the W3C semantic web technologies are not even attempting to solve any part of the ultimate problem of semantic analysis: natural language understanding. Instead the highest goal in this presentation is the /manual/ cataloging of /whole/ documents (and emails, customer questions, etc).