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In a revolutionary move, Obama’s administration is set to utilise next generation web technologies to bring an unprecedented level of transparency to government. In this case it will shed light on how the roughly US $800 billion dollar economic stimulus will be spent. The recently launched recovery.gov website (powered by nothing other then Drupal) brought with it the promise that citizens would be able to view where the money was going and how it was going to be spent.

To enable the citizen masher to do their wizardry, the administration will be opening up a veritable candy store of goodies: Semantic Web, RDF, Linked Data, SPARQL, RDFa, SIOC, ATOM, RESTful APIs, JSON, Widgets, Wikis, XForms, P2P Networks. Wow. They only forgot the lions and tigers and bears oh my… This is an unbelievable stack of technology. I didn’t think the government even knew what an RSS feed was …

…Crowdsourcing

Soon every citizen activist will have at their disposal intelligent data on everything related to the money trail and this will be combined with the best of Web 2.0 and Web 3.0 mashup tools. Imagine the possibilities… Just look at what Adrian Holovaty did with ChicagoCrime to get an idea of what can be done when data is combined in unique ways. Read original post

http://www.recovery.gov/

From the Recovery.gov website:

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act is an unprecedented effort to jumpstart our economy, create or save millions of jobs, and put a down payment on addressing long-neglected challenges so our country can thrive in the 21st century. The Recovery and Reinvestment Act is an extraordinary response to a crisis unlike any since the Great Depression. With much at stake, the Act provides for unprecedented levels of transparency and accountability so that you will be able to know how, when, and where your tax dollars are being spent. Spearheaded by a new Recovery Board, this Act contains built-in measures to root out waste, inefficiency, and unnecessary spending. This website, Recovery.gov, will be the main vehicle to provide each and every citizen with the ability to monitor the progress of the recovery.

It would be great to see the Irish Government following the example of Obama’s administration, trust and transparency really help when asking people to pull together in order to get through tough times….

However, to make this happen, the Web of Entities must trigger (as the WWW did) what economists call network externality effect, and this requires at least three pillars to be in place:

1. a suitable infrastructure which can support the open and sustainable growth of the Web of Entities;
2. a critical mass of new entity-aware content and data accessible to a very large number of users in a relatively short time;
3. a collection of exemplary and high impact applications, which can prove to the key players in ICT that investing on the Web of Entities is worthwhile.

The OKKAM project presents a strategy and an effective work plan to build the three pillars of this Web of Entities, not only from a technical point of view, but also from a social, organizational and business-oriented perspective.
To achieve this goal, Okkam have been the promoters of a large European initiative, which ended up in a successful Large-Scale Integrating Project called … OKKAM – Enabling the Web of Entities. Check the new project web site.

http://www.okkam.org/

The Blurb:

Semantic Wave 2008 Report: Industry Roadmap to Web 3.0 and Multibillion Dollar Market Opportunities. It is the first comprehensive industry study of the next stage of internet evolution — Web 3.0. This landmark 400-page report is written for executives, developers, designers, entrepreneurs, investors, and others who want to better understand semantic technologies, the business opportunities they present, and the ways Web 3.0 will change how we use and experience the internet.

The executive summary (27 pages- the full report is 400 pages long) is available for download from the Project 10x website (you need to register for free to download the summary)

The semantic wave embraces four stages of internet growth. The first stage, Web 1.0, was about connecting information and getting on the net. Web 2.0 is about connecting people — putting the “I” in user interface, and the “we” into Webs of social participation. The next stage, Web 3.0, is starting now. It is about representing meanings, connecting knowledge, and putting these to work in ways that make our experience of internet more relevant, useful, and enjoyable. Web 4.0 will come later. It is about connecting intelligences in a ubiquitous Web where both people and things reason and communicate together.

Project10X’s Semantic Wave 2008 Report tells the story of Web 3.0. Over the next decade, Web 3.0 will spawn multi-billion dollar technology markets that will drive trillion dollar global economic expansions to transform industries as well as our experience of the internet. The Semantic Wave 2008 report examines drivers and market forces for adoption of semantic technologies in Web 3.0 and maps opportunities for investors, technology developers, and public and private enterprises.

http://project10x.com/