Bad News for the Pithy

Just my luck. Right when I start to push out the pithy quotes, Reader’s Digest announces that it is filing for bankruptcy. I remember the days when everyone would recite the newest pearls from their “Quotable Quotes” column.

My little gems, such as they are, came in two recent interviews, both on the subject of semantic computing and the semantic web. The subject matter in each is somewhat similar – I wasn’t asked so much about future work that Microsoft is doing, but for assessments of different approaches in semantic computing past and present, and where the field is heading.

In the lead article in this week’s FedInsider newsletter, “Semantic Search Gains Ground on Traditional Keyword,” I focused on tagging – both automated and crowdsourced. My little bon mot in that article was about the promise of semantic search:

Semantic technology, according to Lewis Shepherd, can in the long run add much more to people’s ability to make sense of large volumes of unstructured data by freeing searchers from what he calls the “tyranny of the 10-word search window.”

Now if that doesn’t grab you, the other article ran just a couple of weeks ago in Security Watch, “Web 3.0: Installing the Plumbing,” drawn from an interview I gave to the Zurich-based International Relations and Security Network. That article focused more on the technical aspects of how the semantic web will or won’t be constructed. My quotable-quote was meant to salute the promise of semantic computing without adding to the hype that surrounds any discussion of the semantic web:

The semantic web will be a complex, boring, but very empowering set of capabilities,” Shepherd told Security Watch. “It will provide people with a rich networked and hyperlinked dense array of semantically enabled text. It will change the way people collaborate and encounter information on the web.”

Feel free to read the full articles if you’re into semantic computing, or just battling insomnia.

Oh, and if you’re wondering what kind of content is bringing down the readership of Reader’s Digest?  Their upcoming September edition (available online) features their list of the “Ten Funniest Jokes in America” contest – and the winner is titled, “A Priest, A Minister, and a Rabbi.”  Oy vey!

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