Notes from the Session: Structured Data for the Masses (RowanNairn)
Opens with a discussion about Cory Doctorows (semantic web problems/semantic web is dead) and Clay Shirky (Many 2 Many solution could provide hope for semantic web)
Rowan Nairn demo
Rowan has a prototype web application that stems from some of the same ideas outlined in Clay's approach:
A bookark keeper for anything (not just pages) Wiki database - a general backend database versioned on a micro-level
- Spreasheet oriented web page
- Creating a wiki-based database
- Database versioned on a micro level
- Collaborative online spreadsheet
- Generalized bookmarking (like 43places) - but more difficult to make work than specialized ones - but you don't have to create specialized ones for every class of object
- Ability to add any piece of data on a web page and tag it (for example, searching for cameras, you could add the key values (price/zoom/powersource) into the dbwiki
RossMayfield discussed vertical information assembly (coding) vs. horizontal (wiki). WM-data coming out of the wikimania event in Frankfurt
Popularity vs. trust was discussed in managing or policing the validity of data
RossMayfield discussed using social network as a filter - reputation experiment within wiki example: omidyar.net/home explicit reputation system - give out to different people. (see also WikiFeatures:RatedPages, where this feature has recently been cataloged)
Chao Lam demo
Next we saw a demo from Chao Lam
- Open Record 0.1 - a tool for web-based peer production
- open source project - 3 part-time programmers - 1200 hours
- A content management system used for structured wiki applications
- Nav-bar - wiki-like page different views
- Collaboration website
- Editable pages - editable tables - ajaxy interface - open source
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