The Semantic Web is Meaning Less
(at least to search engines…)
When recently launching my SemaWorx SEO and Internet Marketing Shop here in Leipzig, I had been carefully considering, where to put the focus of the work, in order to prevent ending up in the same pot with all the other more or less notable SEOs in the area.
So I initially thought it to be a great idea to deploy my existing experience of semantic data logic for search engine optimization. This has become increasingly popular lately with the rise of RDFa and adoption of commerce ontologies like Good Relations through major search engines.
As experience in this field is not easily replicable, the knowledge about and deployment of Semantic Web technology could have made for a great USP.
But after playing around with these fresh options for a while and much to my disappointment, I discovered that (at least a the time of this writing), most relevant search engines, including Google, do not actually parse the semantic markup, but rather string-search it with the rest of the respective page.
What may sound quite reasonable from an efficiency or productivity point of view, unfotunately also skips an impotant fact derived from the triple-nature of RDF data: To match and co-relate information across different domains. This could help reduce a lot of false positives out of search engine results.
That said, apart from the early island solutions like Intel’s Mash Maker, by now not na lot of poeple have successfully managed to
I’ll dare to offer all SEO enhanced online services, which we create for use with Google’s Universal Search or Yahoo!’s Monkey Business, as fully query-able semantic data endpoints so not not only search robot, but any application willing to use and promote the outcomes will be able to use these in real time.
Sound intersting ? Wanna give it a try ? Then you are very welcome to get in touch with us via the Semantic Search Engine Optimization site.
NH Hoteles now providing Under-Way Hand Washing to their Guests
Despite there possibly being ways to wash your hands in innocence, this appears a much more credible and easier available approach to get your hands clean of almost anything without deploying any water. No kidding. This isn’t just the infamous "instant water"-concept (simply add water to use… 
), but an innovation of NH Hoteles to their Agua de la Tierra body care series, my side discovery when staying at the NH Norge after the before mentioned seminar in the evening and finding a free sample of the product in my hotel room.
I tried it out and it’s really impressive: You just pour some of the gel into your hands, rub them firmly, possibly casually dry them with a handkerchief — and that’s it. You got clean hands from just about half of the tube’s content.
Being already aware of NH’s innovation in the food area (like the healthy fast food created by Ferran Adriá) or the hospitality sector (think their nhow design hotels), I now also became a great fan of their cosmetics series and immediately bought a dozen units of this impressive handcleaner to accompany my future travels.
Hamburg and the Semantic Web Paradigms
Joining a seminar session on practical semantic web applications yesterday evening, I found myself in a conference room at Hamburg’s Haus der Wirtschaft, mostly among what seemed to be scientists, consultants and librarians.
While the talk by a Adobe representative’s talk on XMP did not exceed much what can be found on their respective websites, Hans-Peter Schnurr, CEO of Ontoprise GmbH, brought in not just some very insightful experiments with the audience, but also impressive case studies showcasing their Service Resolution Management software, a structured and centralized repository of technical repair information to help companies fulfilling contracts all over the world learn from mistakes.
If you like to take a peek at the lecture yourself, I recommend having a look at the video documentation on the event organizer’s website.
Fascinating Insights from the First Ontologist Workshop at Max-Planck-Institute Leipzig
Having joined the OBML workgroup‘s 1st workshop at the University of Leipzig Max-Planck-Institute of Evolutionary Anthropology for the last two days, I am left quite impressed.
Not only by the presenters’ track records, but also by the sheer number and diversity of researchers and practitioners Prof. Dr. rer. nat habil. Heinrich Herre managed to bring together for the event. Commonly such gatherings here in Germany would consist of ten people at most — this time there were more than 50 experts, including international guests, from institutions and companies all over the country.
Nevertheless, something extremely re-assuring that I am taking away is not only the obvious development progress in the ontology sector, but also the fact, that even the most renowned experts in the field struggle with the very same technical insufficiencies as we do, when designing new data models for our SemaWorx application base.
Therefore we also had a very enlightening (entertaining goes without saying…) evening at local Cafe Madrid, where over the delicious meal discussion focus lay more on the practically achievable short-term benefits of current semantic modeling approaches, rather than their long-term optimization wishlist (hopefully I didn’t get this imprecise now… ).
9th JCI Leipzig "Wirtschaftstreff" 2009
at the Radisson Blu Leipzig
Coming Thursday, November 5th, 2009 at 07.30 p.m. the "Wirtschaftsjunioren" local JCI chapter here in Leipzig invite to their monthly social gathering "Wirtschaftstreff" at the Radisson Blu Hotel’s "Spagos" Bar/Lounge.
This time the public event includes an update by Ines Falkenhan on Family Affair: Balancing Family And Work for working parents living in the Leipzig area.
In case you are not from here or don’t know the Radisson, this map will assist you finding us. The facility exists right opposite from the well-known Augustusplatz.
See you on Thursday ! 
