
Chapter 1
The Quest for Semantics
In this chapter, we explain the basic motivations and ideas underlying Se-
mantic Web technologies as presented in this book, along with some of the
history of these ideas. This gentle introduction prepares the stage f or the
more technical parts that are covered in subsequent chapters.
From its very beginnings, the development of Semantic Web technologies
has been closely related to the World Wide Web. This is is not surprising,
given that the inventor of the WWW – Sir Tim Berners-Lee – has originally
coined the term “Semantic Web” and has inspired much research in this area.
Important goals of the approaches that