Semantic Web Programming

Chapter 11. Sharing Information

"Share Everything."

—Robert Fulghum

Information was meant to be free and the Semantic Web gives us a powerful platform in which to share it. In this high-level section, you've learned about locating RDF information and integrating various RDF data providers into the FriendTracker application. This chapter will cover the different ways in which we can take the output of our application and share it with the global community. As you'll see, sharing isn't limited to standing up a SPARQL endpoint or placing a static RDF file on your web server. There are all sorts of ways to share semantic information so others can use it for their needs, quickly building a chain of use and reuse from data far removed from its original purpose. Additional topics like microformats and their relation to the Semantic Web will also be covered.

This chapter also covers:

• Microformats

• eRDF

• RDFa

• Tools and frameworks that expose RDF data

• Creating a web page with embedded RDFa data based on the FriendTracker ontology

Microformats

Microformats, in the simplest definition, are XML tags that are incorporated into XHTML web pages and support the declarative expression of semantics. The fundamental components of microformats are laid out in Figure 11-1 and are based on information located at www.microformats.org. The idea behind microformats is straightforward: By enriching existing websites with the addition of attributes such as class and rel, it is easy for both people and intelligent agents ...