Richard Wallis in Perth

A blog post could not do justice to Richard Wallis’s thought provoking presentation at the State Library of WA this week.

The questions from the audience added to the interest and left me with a slightly better understanding of the semantic web which we’ve all been hearing about for a few years now.

Wallis is from the UK library software company, Talis, where they are developing a Global Semantic Web Platform. He describes himself as a “technology evangelist” and indeed the next wave of innovation on the web will be technology driven. Web 2.0 by contrast is been driven by social forces.

Some are already calling this new wave Web 3, or the semantic web. It will dramatically alter the underlying foundation of the web, open up the connections between silos of information and expose them to greater exploitation and interrogation.

Richard Wallis’s presentation, “Web 2.0 - Where Next?”, can be found on his blog, Panlibus.

The Talis website also has lots more information and videos on semantic web developments. CAVAL Training sponsored the event.