Tag Archives: knowledge graph

Andreas Blumauer

PoolParty: SKOS is the basis for Enterprise Knowledge Graphs

by , Category: Tools & Software, Videos & Tutorials
The latest release of PoolParty Thesaurus Server offers a comfortable GUI to extend SKOS thesauri by other RDF schemas in order to create highly linkable knowledge graphs which now can be deployed into a Virtuoso RDF database.

In its core, PoolParty is built upon SKOS, W3C’s standard to define controlled vocabularies like taxonomies or thesauri. However, the latest release 3.2.2 of the well known Thesaurus Software offers a highly flexible RDF schema editor to introduce either widely accepted schemas like FOAF or SIOC or even individual ones, customized to one’s own needs.

“This extension of PoolParty offers new options to our clients to create highly expressive knowledge graphs. Custom schemas can also be used to make links between differing enterprise vocabularies. One the other hand we have taken care not to overload the PoolParty user interface with unwanted complexity”, says Helmut Nagy, COO of the Semantic Web Company.

Watch this video to get an impression how this new feature works:

In addition to “Custom Schemas”, PoolParty Thesaurus Server is now integrated with Virtuoso Universal Server. Thesaurus managers can ‘deploy’ stable versions of their knowledge graphs into a Virtuoso RDF store. Virtuoso is well-known for its high performance even when complex queries are made across different (named) graphs.

The following video will show a short demo of this brandnew feature which opens up completely new options for big data solutions based on enterprise linked data integration:

To get a complete overview over all new features of PoolParty Thesaurus Server 3.2.2, please take a look at the release notes.

Andreas Blumauer

Do you like Google’s Knowledge Graph?

by , Category: Linked Data & Open Data, Mashups & Web services, Semantic Web Applications

Semantic Enterprise Search enters the second phase.

Finally the Knowledge Graph has arrived in Europe: What has been provided on google.com for the US-Market since May 2012, is now available also for most European countries. Search results are no longer only a list of documents (and advertisements) but also a mashup of facts, points of interest, events etc. referring to the search phrase.

For example, if the user is searching for ‘Wiener Philharmoniker’ (‘Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra’) a factbox including related searches is provided:

Do you like this rather new way of knowledge discovery? We do, except the fact that Google hasn´t properly explained to the audience which technology is behind the Knowledge Graph which is the Web of Linked Data aka the Semantic Web (Do you want to know more about the relationship between the Knowledge Graph and Linked Data? Click here).

But anyway, here are some benefits we can see, if search technologies make use of a ‘knowledge graph’, a ‘knowledge model’, a ‘thesaurus’ or generally spoken: Linked Data.

  • Facts around an object (or an entity) can be found nicely packed up to a dossier
  • Serendipity can be stimulated by ‘related searches’ which means: Users can discover the formely ‘unknown’ in a more comfortable way
  • Data from various sources can be pulled together to a mashup (e.g. ‘upcoming events’ could come from a different database than the basic facts of Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra)
  • Search phrases are well understood by the engine since they are based on concepts and not anymore on literals, e.g. if the user searches for ‘Red Bull Stratos’, also results for ‘Felix Baumgartner’ will be delivered
  • Search can be refined, e.g. if one searches for ‘Vienna’, a list of POIs will be displayed to refine the actual place the user is looking for

Now imagine you would have a search engine in your company’s intranet based on a knowledge graph which is about the enterprise you are working for.

Such an advanced search application would look like this:

  • Data streams and all kind of content from internal sources are nicely mashed with information from the web (e.g. from Twitter, Youtube etc.)
  • Search assistants are provided to help users to refine their information needs to make them more specific
  • Entities and their sub-concepts (e.g. subsidiaries of large companies or regions of countries) are nicely packed together to one dossier

The key question now is: “how to set up a customised knowledge graph for a certain company?”.

Corporate Semantic Web based applications can be realised on top of software platforms like PoolParty. They all have a customised knowledge graph in their core. This is always the basis for concept-based indexing of specialised content from a corporate intranet. The basic standard for this is SKOS which can be used together with advanced query languages like SPARQL. Such graphs can be used for semantic indexing but also to ask for relations like ‘is point-of-interest in’, ‘is event of’, ‘is related search for’ etc. This is the next-generation semantic search which help decision-makers, information professionals and all kind of knowledge workers to improve their work significantly.
One comfortable way to create customised knowledge graphs is to make use of Linked Data sources like Freebase (like Google does) or DBpedia. More details wanted? Take a look at the PoolParty approach for efficient knowledge modeling.
Thomas Thurner

Semantic Web Company’s Florian Kondert starts his mission in San Francisco

by , Category: GoSiliconValley

Semantic Web Company’s Florian Kondert takes part in the technology initiative “GoSiliconValley”, which is part of the go-international export initiative run by the Austrian Federal Economic Chamber and the Federal Ministry of Economy, Family and Youth. It allows Austrian IT to complete a 3-month program using the Business Accelerator “Plug and Play Tech Center” in Sunnyvale to kick-start their businesses. Florian Kondert has just arrived there and told us about his first impressions.

CC by sa / Coolcaesar

Florian Kondert: The Valley is famous for innovations in high tech – for a good reason. Professionals from varying domains share their expertise and discuss about opportunities to fix a problem faster and more intensely than anywhere else on the world. In my point of view semantic technologies are considered as a very normal approach to face information-intense issues. But – here you don’t talk about how the technology works in detail – you focus on living examples, business use cases and benefits that you could receive by using semantic technologies. Long story short: “if you can help me to solve my problem, I don’t care what it is.”

Semantic Puzzle: Somehow it seems that leading US companies in the field brew their own kind of Semantic Web. Google’s Knowledge Graph and Facebook’s Social Graph are the Semantic Web re-brushed and renamed. Is this some kind of adoption of the technology by the US market? And as a European visitor, how do you see this uncooporative gesture to the Semantic Web (which has a lot of roots on the old continent)?

Florian Kondert: People understand “knowledge” and people have an idea about “social”, but how many people know what’s behind “semantic”? Here it might happen, that you don’t use the word “semantic” during a whole discussion once. From a visitors perspective I have the impression that communicators here work really hard to make 120% sure that people understand what you are talking about. Thus, you use your opposite number’s vocabulary. Another reason is again the speed of interaction. You can’t stick within definitions or explanations. So you “simply” engage people to understand the benefit, like “it is more social” or it “helps you to enlarge your knowledge”.

Semantic Puzzle: In Europe, Linked Data still attracts only companies and institutions of a bigger scale. SME and smaller organizations do not invest in this technological change. Is this the same in the US or is linked data a broader issue?

Florian Kondert: Based on the discussions I’ve had until now, linked (open) data is a new thing for most people, even here at Silicon Valley. But SME guys are totally positive towards the idea of using freely available, structured data. Why? Because competition here is amazing. There are probably 10 companies in an area of 20 miles developing pretty much the same service. The more efficient (integrating data) and valuable (data mash-ups) the service is, the better the position on the market. Within one week 6 SMEs asked me to show them more about linked data principles and the technologies that should be used. People here are very curious, not afraid about new things.

Semantic Puzzle: From now on you are on a mission to meet and talk to various experts in the field. What are the next planned stops and events? How can someone meet you?

Florian at SFNewtech

Florian Kondert: I’m grateful that I can meet some real semantic web and linked data ambassadors like Roger MacDonald form archive.org (Leader of Semantic Open Media Platform Project at Internet Archive) or Jeanne Holm (Evangelist at Data.gov; W3C Co-Chair eGovernment Interest Group, Chief Knowledge Architect at NASA). Just on Tuesday I had my first US-presentation at SFNewTech and I’m invited to present what SWC does at Lotico meetup in San Francisco on Wednesday 8th of August and at the LA Semantic Web meetup Group on Tuesday 14th of August. From August 21-23 I’ll join NoSQL Now! conference in San José. More to come.

You’ll most probably meet me around in Sunnyvale, San José, Palo Alto and San Francisco – whenever the discussion turns towards sophisticated information management. I’m drinking a lot of coffee these days – so let’s get one and discuss about´ your issues.

Get in touch with Florian:
f.kondert@semantic-web.at
+1 408 421 7428
skype: kondertpunkt

http://www.linkedin.com/pub/florian-kondert/3/763/71a

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Andreas Blumauer

Has Google hi-jacked the Semantic Web?

by , Category: Search Engines

Just recently Google has launched the ‘Knowledge Graph‘ (GKG) which “understands real-world entities and their relationships to one another: things, not strings.” Has Google hi-jacked the idea of the ‘Semantic Web’ or at least its vocabulary?

Sean Golliher has compared the most central concepts of the SemWeb community to the wording of Google in his blog post, for instance: Google doesn´t talk about ‘Linked data’ or ‘URIs’ but rather about ‘things and their relationships’. We don´t know if Google uses standards like RDF but obviously a lot of concepts and ideas developed by the SemWeb community in recent years were implemented in GKG. Some people complain that Google should clearly state that this is an implementation of the ‘Semantic Web’ (which was not invented by Google), others say that most concepts like ‘taxonomies’ have been around for hundreds of years anyway.

I believe that both sides have now a great chance to work together: Whether Google’s goal, to “build the next generation of search, which taps into the collective intelligence of the web and understands the world a bit more like people do”, can be reached or not is a matter of the intelligence of the employees. A lot of potential can be found within the semantic web community: If Google gives credit where it is due, semantic web people will be a bit more inspired to support an eco-system built around GKG – and it won´t last long until an ‘Open Knowledge Graph’ will fit together with Google´s revenue model.