URIs are the digital brand insignia.
Basically, the size of the brand emblem is shrinking, but the opportunity space is increasing exponentially, courtesy of Linked Data density.

For example, traditional media (TV, Radio, Newspapers) will feel lots of pain on the traditional media side (GIANT emblems such as TV screens, Radios, and Newspaper) but once they realize there is a natural (and relative) “master-details” relationship in play, exploitable within the Web (courtesy of Linked Data), they will get with the program — as demonstrated by Calais effort.

“Units of context” separated by quality associated with URIs is how this will eventually play out (enterprise and personal fronts) market and economy wise.

Kingsley

URIs are the digital brand insignia.

Basically, the size of the brand emblem is shrinking, but the opportunity space is increasing exponentially courtesy of Linked Data density.

For example traditional media (TV, Radio, Newspapers) will feel lots of pain on the traditional media side (GIANT emblems such as TV screens, Radios, and Newspaper) but once they realize there is a natural (and relative) \master-details\ relationship exploitable within the Web (courtesy of Linked Data), they will get with the program, as demonstrated by Calais already

Units of \context\ separated by quality, exposed by URIs is how this will eventually play out (enterprise and personal fronts).

Kingsley

You win the prize. Your point is fundamental to some of the underlying strategy behind Calais. We have an exploding universe of content – from content publishers like Thomson Reuters to user generated content to social media to …

People want to make decisions, gain insights and understand context using all of it – but the trust you can put into different content sources varies wildly. So – if we can gain interoperability using (Calais + Thomson Reuters Data + Linked Data Cloud + Other content assets) – we set the stage to empower users to bring *everything* together for the task at hand.

Professionals trust Thomson Reuters content – so we’re confident we’ll have a role to play in all that. In fact – as we’re part of the trusted content universe then the more content the better.

Make sense?

Regards,

Tom

“The message for enterprises should be more along the lines of: mesh relevant internal data with external data, and where you see economic value, publish.”

Exactly – which is where I was going with

“We have an annoying tendency to view data in our databases as an indivisible mass, vigorously and unthinkingly applying the same (expensive) protections to an uninteresting and low-value factoid of underlying context as we do to the core attributes of our next big lead.”

Paul

I think I can hear Tom’s vehement response… but maybe I’ll let him deliver it…

Paul

The case for enterprise Linked Data is pretty old. Enterprises have always sought and invested in technologies that provide “Open Database Connectivity”.

A point of Linked Data intertia for enterprise, which isn’t technical or conceptual, lies in the perception that “put your data on the Web” literally means: put all your data on the Web. The message for enterprises should be more along the lines of: mesh relevant internal data with external data, and where you see economic value, publish. This is what you see with Calais, BBC, and more to come.

As I’ve articulated repeatedly, in relation to the enterprise, Linked Data is about “shrinking Data Source Names” (DSNs). DSNs are well known and understood in the enterprise realm, they just need to know that via the Linked Data meme the following happens:

1. The DSN shrinks i.e., its reduced to an ID or URI
2. The ID or URI is now scoped at the record level rather than container level (table or database)
3. Courtesy of HTTP intrinsics the representation of the results of a query targeted at the ID or URI (DSN) is negotiable (you don’t need a new Report Writing tool to view data analysis,just put a URI in your browser and “self description” via the entity-attribute-value graph that is RDF does its thing).

Most importantly, how does Linked Data handle security (enterprise or Web or combination of)? Until the recent foaf+ssl initiative, this was completely problematic for Linked Data purity (i.e., the follow-your-nose process of de-referencing hyperdata links). Simple example, how do I not inadvertently expose customer or private data to the wrong people via Linked Data?

To conclude, enterprises will get on board with Linked Data becuase they’ve always thought they had linked data until they hit operating system, dbms, application, and network lock-in. The ingenious use of HTTP to construct Entity IDs (URIs) solves that hurdle. The emergence of foaf+ssl addresses the security concerns (note, in the enterprise realm of ODBC, JDBC etc.. client side certificates are rife and normal occurences).

Links:
1. http://bit.ly/1DgFul – My Linked Data Planet Presentation (target audience: Enterprise)

2. http://www.slideshare.net/bblfish/building-secure-open-distributed-social-networks-presentation – foaf+ssl in a nutshell courtesy of Linked Data exploitation

3. http://esw.w3.org/topic/foaf+ssl – main information space re. this effort.

Kingsley