Where is the “Web” in the Semantic Web?
The Semantic Web standards follow the design principles of the Web in order to allow the growth of a planet-wide collection of semantically-rich data. The key element of this design is the use of Web addresses (URIs) to name things. Because the meaning of a term in a language without central control becomes established by its consistent use to achieve the same effect, and URIs are used around the World to access web pages, the Web is used to establish globally-shared meaning for URIs in the Semantic Web. (This is what people mean when they say RDF URIs are “grounded” in the Web.) As with the Web in general, this approach allows the Semantic Web to grow and evolve without any central control or authority, but while still maintaining as much consistency and authorial control as needed for particular applications or particular enterprises. The techniques for doing all this are still evolving, but ideally whenever anyone sees a Semantic Web URI they can use it in their browser and see auth
