Database Reference
In-Depth Information
football. Similarly, a building's spatial extent or “footprint” is not the same as the
building itself. So, one cannot assign a use to the footprint. Instead, best modeling
practice is to define the building as the primary object and assign it both a footprint
and a use. One might argue that this is all far too much detail, and it does not really
matter that much: There is not enough time to go to such theoretical and philosophi-
cal lengths. While we would advocate simplicity and limiting of scope wherever
possible, we cannot support such a brush-off. The devil is in the detail, and at some
point, if you have not modeled your data well enough to be self-explanatory, some-
one is sure to reuse it incorrectly. The Semantic Web helps to guard against such
misuse through misunderstanding.
2.4.4 D
ata
p
ublIshIng
anD
D
IsCovery
The main benefit of Linked Data is that it provides a standardized way of publishing
data on the Web that makes it easier to find. By instituting a recognized format in
which to publish the data, semantic search engines can follow links from one dataset
to another, and hence discover new information, in the same way that documents
are linked together on the World Wide Web. The difference is simply that instead
of the links being between pages describing things, the links are actually between
the things themselves. While search engines built explicitly on semantic technology,
such as Hakia,
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Sindice,
10
and SWSE,
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can use the Linked Data to find results of
your search in context, publishing data as RDF can also push your Web site up the
Google rankings. This kind of search engine optimization can be hugely important
for organizations trying to gain brand recognition or sell their data. One example of
a site successfully rising up the Google rankings is the BBC's natural history site,
which is now embedded with semantic tags. Try searching on Google for an ani-
mal, vegetable, or other natural history topic—say the sunflower starfish. The BBC
Web page is now far more likely to appear in the top few sites returned by Google
(at the time of writing, the BBC was the fourth top site for the sunflower starfish).
It can make good business sense to publish your organization's information as
Linked Data. For example, in 2009 Best Buy launched a Semantic Product Web beta,
using the GoodRelations
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e-commerce ontology with RDFa (Resource Description
Framework-in-attributes) microformat tags embedded in the pages and saw a 30%
increase in traffic to the Best Buy pages.
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A number of potential business models
for Linked Data have been discussed by Scott Brinker,
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from subscription-based
services, through advertising, to traffic generation and increasing brand awareness.
We discuss these ideas and others in Chapter 8 when we look at how to generate a
return on the investment in curating and publishing Linked Data.
Linked Data also offers the benefit of assisting data providers to build services
based on their content, which may be easier to monetize than trying to sell their data
directly—particularly as Web users expect more and more data to be offered for “free,”
and in the GI field, with Google Maps, a basic level of GI data already is widely used
without direct payment. If your GI data is easily available in RDF format, it is also
easier for other people to build applications or services based on your data, particularly
if they are using technologies outside your core competency, such as mobile apps,
which can generate an indirect revenue stream for you. As always, getting in there
