IMG_0589 (Photo credit: mmmmmrob)
Talis Group, long at the forefront of Semantic Web and Linked Data efforts, announced that it has decided to pull the plug on Talis Systems, with its Consulting and Linked Data platform Kasabi – and will focus just on their education arm. Their own words echo those of many others in the space, when they noted they have “invested an incredible amount of time and effort in playing its part to help foster the vision of a web of data.”
As a result of such efforts “… many more organisations are now seeing the benefits of applying semantic web technologies to help publish, share, and create value from data.” Their release goes on to say “… there is a limit to how much one small organisation can achieve…” and that “… the commercial realities for Linked Data technologies and skills whilst growing is still doing so at a very slow rate, too slow for us to sustain our current levels of investment.
Many are quick to assume that this is an indicator that Linked Data and Semantic Web are being relegated to the same pastures as AI, or are making other sweeping comments. Instead, I would argue that this is more an indicator of two other things.
First, it is a commentary on the success of their evangelization — with their being somewhat a victim of their own success. As a result of all the noodling, sharing, teaching, pushing of Talis and others who took the early risks and made early investment, the “big guys” (while saying they weren’t interested) were observing and the evolution of the space. As such, they have made acquisitions (think Powerset, Metaweb and Siri, among others) and have openly embraced what Talis, for one, has been promoting (think schema.org). In so doing, they have moved the game to another level. In that regard, it is not an abandonment of the capabilities, but a business decision as to the way forward for them – as a product versus service.
   
      
(images from CrunchBase)
Google Flavored Knowledge Graph (Photo credit: inkdroid)
Secondly, it points to the difficult and ongoing question as to where motivation lies for businesses to expose their data. In a business context, controlling one’s data is (like it or not) power. And APIs have been a means of opening up bits that a company deems in its interest to make available. In the same way that Web2.0 essentially facilitated the masses having their own voice, in their own control, RDFa, GoodRelations, and schema.org are examples of that happening for businesses and their data as well (think Best Buy).  Mind you, the rendering of the Knowledge Graph on any particular subject/search demonstrates just how simple it is now (everything is relative!) to structure what you want to expose, for the consumption by others. This begs the question: Do we need another platform?
The Semantic Web and Linked Data are not going away. It is all just getting more usable (though there’s quite a ways to go), and the the concept of linkages does not stop at the firewall – but rather at whatever limit is set by those deciding to expose. (Note, this can also be phrased as “the limits chosen by those who control the particular data in question” – but that introduces another discussion topic entirely, which is whose data is it anyway).
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