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Recently we looked at the state of Linked Data in 2010 , noting developments such as governments putting public data online and Thomson Reuters putting structure around commercial data using OpenCalais . In a follow-up post, we explained the distinction between Linked Data, Open Data and the Semantic Web . Georgi Kobilarov, who runs a Linked Data startup from Germany called Uberblic Labs , recently issued an interesting challenge on his blog. He asked: if we had a Web of Data, what would you build? Not to steal Georgi's thunder, but we think this is a great question to put to ReadWriteWeb readers too. Sponsor Here's Georgi's idea: "If we had a Web of Data, I would built an application for painless travel planning. It would integrate flight plans, train timetables, bus routes, car rental offers, etc. And the user would be able to just say: I want to go from A to B: Find me the best/cheapest/fastest routes. With a Web of Data, an application could do all that combining for me, the same way flight booking sites do that today for just flights." Here's my idea for an app that uses the Web of Data. I'd like a web site or app that allows me to discover the locations of original art works by my favorite artists, and then create travel itineraries for me to see some or all of those art works (most famous artists have their art works scattered around the world, in various museums and galleries). It's possible that there is a web directory of artists somewhere that has some or even all of this data already, but if so I haven't found it. I ask for this because every now and then I search the Web for a painting that I saw in a book. A recent example was a Modigliani painting that I was attempting to create a copy of , for my beginners acrylic painting class. The original painting was called "Portrait of Madame Hanka Zborowska." One of the results from Google told me that the original painting is located at the National Gallery of Modern Art, Rome, Italy. I could potentially spend hours hunting down the locations of Modigliani's paintings, using Google - and it's likely that some of the data isn't currently online. So it would be great if I could query one web site or app: tell me where all the originals of Modigliani's paintings are in the world, and draw me an itinerary for visiting all or some of them. Heck, maybe even book my flights and hotels! That's my example of what I'd build from a Web of Data. Now tell us what site or app you would like built , if the data was available on the Web. Discuss
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Open Thread: What Would You Build With a Web of Data?
Tags:
data,
distinction,
modigliani,
national,
open thread,
semantic,
user,
World
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When it comes to tech conferences, the first thing most people think about is the parties. They might think about networking opportunities or learning experiences, but all too often, these are brushed off as mutual admiration societies and redundant, unoriginal chatter. I've heard every critique imaginable about some of the best-known tech conferences - but are there still valid reasons for shelling out a thousand dollars or more to spend a few days "partying" with your peers? Sponsor The greatest thing I've ever gotten out of conferences is friendship - mutually beneficial, educational friendship. And the greatest task a conference organizer can hope to accomplish - swag, parties and panels be damned - is getting the right people into the same set of rooms so those friendships can be formed. Aside from the pure serendipity of meeting new people (or meeting online friends in real life), I have found that the main benefits of conferences are those I create for myself. In other words, when I have complained that the content was boring, I am to be blamed for not seeking out content that was interesting or, in a single-track show, for not participating in the conversation and helping to make it more interesting for me and my fellow attendees. When we say that a given show is good for nothing but parties, well, that's a pretty good sign that partying is more of a priority for us than gaining real value. If we say a conference is populated by "the same old douchebags," as one person recently said to me, then perhaps we're not taking the time to socialize and network outside our zone of comfort and familiarity. To be blunt, bad attendees make bad conferences. An engaged, interesting and curious person can go to the exact same show and, in most cases, can derive huge benefits from it though a little effort and a lot of great attitude. There's no show too big, too small, too boring for that person to not be able to learn something from it. What do you think? Have you ever been to a truly, in-and-of-itself bad conference? Would a shift in your own focus have helped? How would you characterize the best conferences of your career to date? Let us know your opinions in the comments. Discuss
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Open Thread: Why Go to Tech Conferences, Anyway?
Tags:
career,
conversation,
dollars-or-more,
learn-something,
network-outside,
open thread,
parties,
taking-the-time,
time,
words
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Social media gurus: We all know one. If you're lucky, you know only one. They are the attendees of tech parties, the "Twitter consultants," the armchair generals of the Internet, and their numbers grow by the day. Yet most of them couldn't distinguish a line of code from a badly punctuated haiku. What's to be done with the social media experts? Accept that their blathering may contain some wisdom? Or require technical exams for all Twitter users with more than 1,000 followers? You decide! And make the NMDs among us take our "technical" quiz. Sponsor There is always grave danger when amateurs turn overnight into experts. This sub-professional clown town is where B movies and Soulja Boy come from. It's also the birthplace of every blowhard who tells you you're "doing it wrong" without any technical knowledge or original thought to back it up. Sometimes, it's not such a bad thing - in fact, there are a great many non-technical social media folks who are doing a great job of creating quality content and helping brands get themselved situated on the Web. But most of the people I can think of who fit this description have been doing their thing for so long that they've had to pick up a few technical tidbits along the way to ensure their continued success and to ensure they weren't sounding like idiots. However, I hold the strong opinion that if you're working in technology - even as a PR flak or social media consultant - you should be able to understand some of the terms, concepts and people that make your business possible. Otherwise, you risk your own reputation by taking the chance that you're scarily wrong or laughably vague, and you risk gumming up the works for your clients by not knowing how to communicate with their audience, many of whom are very technical folk. Ultimately, taking the time and effort to understand the technology you use is simply a matter of taking pride in your work, just like the barista who knows all the ins and outs of the perfectly pulled free-trade organic espresso or the skilled sommelier who, though he may not make the wine himself, knows everything about who did and where and how. Take this quick survey, my social media gurus . (Techies, don't take the survey; you'll skew the results.) If you can't work out the answers, you might be sounding like an idiot - I tell you this because I'm your friend and I care about you. And remember, when you cheat, you're only cheating yourself, so no Wikipedia for you. Let me know in the comments what you think about the issue. Am I being an elitist prig? Did I not take my rant far enough? How much do you think a social media expert should know about tech? Would you work with someone who couldn't sail through this "technical" survey? View Survey Discuss
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Open Thread: Should Social Media Experts Be Required to Know Their Tech?
Tags:
clients,
internet,
numbers,
open thread,
people,
Social Media,
time,
work
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In just a couple more days, a healthy section of the RWW team - and a good number of our friends and fans - will be convening in Austin for South by Southwest Interactive. A couple of us have been asked to speak on panels; we wanted to share that information with you and ask you to share your panels and talks with us (and the rest of our readers, too). Leave a comment telling us - and the rest of the world - about your SXSW Interactive panel. Let us know who's going to be talking and what you're talking about, plus where and when to show up. We're sure you'll find a few kindred spirits who'd love to attend and ask questions - and maybe offer some pre-show feedback for tweaking your notes! Sponsor Our own Marshall Kirkpatrick will be moderating a panel with Scott Raymond of Gowalla, Brett Slatkin of Google, Dare Obasanjo of Microsoft and Jack Moffitt of Collecta - talk about an all-star cast! - on real-time technology. Marshall's especially suited to this task since he's the man behind RWW's mammoth state-of-the-industry report, The Real-Time Web and Its Future . Here are the gory details: Can the Real-Time Web Be Realized? "The emergence of the real-time web enables an unprecedented level of user engagement and dynamic content online. However, the rapidly growing audience puts new, complex demands on the architecture of the web as we know it. This panel will discuss what is needed to make the real-time web achievable." When : Saturday, March 13, 11:00 am Where : Hilton H And I, Jolie O'Dell, will be moderating a panel of entrepreneurs, venture capitalists and startup incubator-types on whether or not startups need traditional, Sand Hill Road VC in the first place. Sure to be contentious, this panel is something I've been looking forward to for a while, and I hope you'll make it out! I'll be talking with Mike Trotzke of SproutBox, Mitch Lasky of Benchmark Capital and Dave McClure of the Founders' Fund. Who Needs Venture Capital? "Only a fraction of business financing comes from Sand Hill Road. Yet entrepreneurs still obsess over traditional big meeting/big money Silicon Valley venture capital. This heated panel debates what types of companies actually benefit from VC and reviews concrete examples of alternatives to traditional venture capital." When : Monday, March 15, 12:30 pm Where : Hilton D Also, for those of you who read along last year during my cross-country travels through the tech scenes in Nashville , Omaha , Chicago , New York and beyond, there's the RoadTwip core conversation with our brothers-in-tech Dave Delaney and Kurt Daradics (also a co-founder of CitySourced ). RoadTwip "Last Spring, three kids set out in one car for two weeks. Their mission was to discover the emerging future for a new America, one town at a time. While they captured and produced plenty of content along their roadtwip.' The most valuable thing was the relationships they established. This panel is about getting out of dodge, it's about going offline - where true friendships are solidified. In the flesh." When : Friday, March 12, 5:00 pm Where : Austin Convention Center 8A Those are our panels! What do you think so far? And please do share the details about your - or your friends' - panels in the comments. Discuss
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Open Thread: Pitch Your Panel for SXSW!
Tags:
america,
Business,
Microsoft,
needs-venture,
open thread,
panel,
real,
relationships,
roadtwip,
Scott Raymond,
spring,
tech
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In the past, we've talked a bit about issues of gender and technology , but today, this blog post brought another important aspect of tech and discrimination to our attention. We polled some of our friends on Google Buzz and asked whether ageism is something they've seen at work or that has effected their lives. And the responses were interesting - although some say they try to be as even-handed as possible, others said that age discrimination exists at both ends of the spectrum, especially when it comes to landing a job. Let us know your experiences and opinions in the comments. Sponsor What Experts Say A 2001 article from CIO started a conversation about ageism in IT. The response was dramatic. "Within days of being asked 'Do CIOs Discriminate Against Older Workers?' about 200 readers had posted answers; a majority of them gave a resounding yes... workers age 55 and older make up only 6.8 percent of the IT workforce." A couple years later, a 2003 study from the International Journal of Selection and Assessment explored how older and middle-aged programmers fared in the tech workforce. Results showed "that age was negatively associated with both annual salary and job benefits levels." But in 2009, another study showed what could have been seen as a turning tide. "The study, ' The Coming Entrepreneurship Boom ,' found that... the United States might be on the cusp of an entrepreneurship boom - not in spite of an aging population but because of it... The average age of U.S.-born technology founders when they started their companies was 39." What People on the Ground Say Perhaps the graying set are doing well as entrepreneurs, but what about when they apply to be programmers, information architects, web designers or other traditionally "young" jobs? In a lively conversation on our Buzz account , Aaron Hayes told us that ageism is alive and well, saying, "I turned 40 this year, and even though I can write Python circles around some... [and] have run several of my own small businesses - somehow, because the metabolic process of my cells has been occurring for several solar rotations beyond a subset of unspoken rules, I can be dismissed by some as a viable candidate for a startup. "And this apparently because people that have experience clearly can't have youthful enthusiasm, or passion." Even though, as Ruggero Domenichini said in the same thread, older employees might have "less ego, nothing to prove, been through failure [and] lived more." And person after person said that they had either hired older programmers and been totally pleased with their fit and performance or - in one case - not hired someone because of age and regretted it ever since. What Do You Say? We're interested to know what your experience has been, either as a younger startup exec faced with hiring decisions or as an older programmer working in IT. On a personal level, I have a great deal of respect and admiration for the older techies in my life - especially as I begin to earn a few gray hairs of my own. My old-as-dirt dad is a fabulous network engineer, and a lot of the best developers and entrepreneurs I know have lived long enough to have a mature, realistic and stable view of their abilities, the ecosystem and their colleagues. And in an amendment of the famous "Never trust anyone over 30" quotation, I'd have to say I'd gladly take the word of a 50-year-old who knew his stuff over a 25-year-old entrepreneur starting his first company. And the hypothetical 25-year-old would do well to take his older colleague's advice seriously, as well. As always, let us know what you think in the comments. Discuss
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Open Thread: Old Fogeys v. Young Whippersnappers, Ageism in Tech
Tags:
attention,
companies,
experiences,
friends,
ground,
international,
older,
open thread,
people,
python,
tech,
United States