I’ve been following what I think is one of the great stories for 2009 that will shape the future of the internet for a few weeks on this blog. That story is the release of linked data resources from the New York Times. What they are calling Linked Open Data.

Essentially, what the Times has done is release the glue that they use internally to create a structure for the way that words – their context, sentiment and definition relate to one another. This is some powerful stuff. Once developers get their hands on this stuff they start to link content together in new ways. Many of them meaningful ways that can allow publishers to write better content due to discovery of similar content. Others have value in search and topic recommendation.

For example, say you wanted to create a chart for the public sentiment regarding an individual or a business over a span of time. Where would you get that data? From a semantic engine that speaks a structured language that knows where and how to group linked open data. The deal is that the internet is full of it. The problem is that most of it is not structured, or glued to keep this thing going, in a way that lends itself to linking content together very well.

Enter the New York Times to release their own internal structure and namespaces that they have been building for decades. They use it with a wealth of content day after day when journalists add their stories to the Times’ corpus. It is the mechanism for creating order from the chaos that is language.

Today, Evan Sandhaus (@kansandhaus), Semantic Technologist for the NYT, released another iteration for their Linked Open Data to the public. It consists of URL updates, explanations on changes (changelog) and some future enhancements to the RDF structure and beyond:

1. New York Times namespace documentation
2. More mappings from subject headings to dbpedia and freebase
3. Sample applications of data

Sandhaus points out at the end of this release that most of the changes are community driven. So if you’re interested in the semantic web and want to have a say in how this great project rolls on get involved.

DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: http://cmp.ly/4

New York Times Iterates Linked Open Data is a post from: TechStartups.com