TSO was a gold sponsor at the first London Semantic Tech and Business Conference on Monday and Tuesday this week (26 and 27 September 2011). TSO's Richard Goodwin spoke on sustainable semantic publishing. Here Richard gives his thoughts on the conference.
What has become clear to us is that the semantic web community is still at a very early stage in terms of getting its message across to those within large organisations who have the influence and budget to have a major impact on how business is done. Exhibitors and visitors to Semtech were roughly segmented into major publishing organisations such as Pearson, the Press Association, the BBC and TSO, who are adopting semantic principles and seeing benefits. Then there are defence related organisations (non-UK) who are making initial investigations into what the semantic web can do for them (“other than anti-terrorism” as one representative told me). Finally there are academics and startups which are targeting the provision of very niche semantic services with potentially disruptive technologies.