The first version of WP2TM is just around the corner.
I’ve set up a separate page for WP2TM, and will be posting news about it there (see also: releases feed).
Update: I’ve just made the plug-in available for download. Happy blogging 
I’ve changed the Wordpress Topic Maps Plugin a bit, so that the produced topic map is more correct (thanks for input :)). I’ve tried using PSIs where possible (from e.g. Ontopedia and Techquila), and have sought inspiration (=>”copy+paste”) from Dmitry’s XTM feed over at SubjectCentric.com. A few issues remain:
I’ll make a new home for the plugin at www.topicobserver.com/wp2tm, so that this blog won’t fill up with entries like the one you just read…
It seems like the program for Topic Maps 2008 has been released (in a provisional form). It is also possible to register for the conference.
Update Feb. 15th: the program is now official. Be sure to check it - or the excellent list of Presentations - out!
Dmitry wishes to see more blogs in XTM format.
Now, this is far from being a Topic Maps driven blog, or blog in XTM-format, but I figured it would be fun to write a Topic Maps “feed” plugin for Wordpress (inspired by Lars Marius Garshol’s Blog Metadata in Topic Maps).
So from today (or evening, if you wish), this blog delivers an XTM 1.0 feed. The plugin’s source code is not perfect — and kinda ugly, but feel free to look at it and/or use it if you wish to (I wont guarantee anything, of course, not even the accuracy of the outputted topic map ;). (more…)
Recently, I stumbled upon a comment (Norwegian) about the semantics of Web 2.0 technologies, which prompted a response.
Since the response turned out rather lengthy, and a bit off-topic, I decided to post it here. Hopefully, it can be of use to others as well.
Although the Web 2.0 has been hyped as something big and new for a while now, and things such as tag clouds are a popular part of many Web 2.0 sites, Web 2.0 sites build on old technologies (+user generated content). It’s all just (X)HTML + JavaScript and CSS. No magic.
There is not much semantics to Web 2.0. The semantics of HTML is still limited to layout/presentation of information (as will HTML5’s be). Even though one can express the start/end of a paragraph or heading, one can for example not explicitly state what an article is about (except through limited meta elements), or how different “topics” — or even what kind of topics we’re talking about — are related.
There is no way to explicitly state that “this article is about X and mentions Y”.
The tag clouds of Web 2.0 are in effect just free-floating words, and do as such not bring anything new to the table (an exception is Roy Lachica’s Fuzzzy.com where tags are structured in an ontology using Topic Maps).
The last couple of years / decade, people have been working towards a more “intelligent” web (although hardly intelligent); the semantic web. Such a web, often referred to as Web 3.0, adds the possibility of expressing semantics outside the limited domain of (X)HTML (or micro formats).
This is accomplished through adding layers of metadata to the web. The semantic web is therefore an extension (not replacement) of todays web, where different technologies, like Topic Maps and RDF/OWL, allow us to express anything about any subject - in a structured, explicit and unambiguous manner. I.e.: not limited to the element set of a given vocabular.
By doing so, one can (hopefully) bring order to the chaos, and develop better applications. Luckily, the technologies are already there, and by using Topic Maps one can e.g. boost findability.
For more on the semantic web or Topic Maps, see e.g.:
Some people at Bouvet, incl. Lars Marius Garshol and Arnar Lundesgaard, started a Topic Maps Snippets blog last year. It’s already a (the?) good source for news on Topic Maps.
Lars Marius Garshol wrote a post last week on how he has set up his tmphoto application to fetch remote information on topics using TMRAP. A good example on how PSIs can be used to exchange data about the same subject across different application domains, and an interesting read.
The presentations from AToMs have been made available online. Lots of intriguing stuff there.
For example, Steve Pepper seems to have been thinking a lot about converting the world to a subject-centric approach of computing lately.
I’m sure that, in a lot of ways, he’s right about how the human mind does not operate on documents, but subject-centric and associatively. At least that’s what my psychology classes told me, and most people experience on a daily basis: thinking of something might lead your thought wandering off to something completely different, but related (e.g. strawberries => milk, or even The Beatles (Strawberry Fields Forever)). When humans learn, we hook the new experiences onto existing knowledge.
Moving to a subject-centric way of computing and information management may be a good way of moving things forward, and, by nature, Topic Maps surely has its role in a subject-centric world. I’m sure we’ll hear more about it at Topic Maps 2008 (there’s also some more slides touching upon the topic).
FYI: Topic Maps 2008 is being held in Oslo, Norway on April 2-4 2008.
Topic Maps 2008 is targeted towards users and potential users of Topic Maps, in particular:
- Information architects, software engineers, and project managers working with portals and web sites;
- Knowledge officers responsible for intranet-based knowledge management;
- Corporate and commercial publishers;
- Public sector providers of information;
- Students and teachers of computer science and library and information science.
Links: Call for Presentations, Keynote Speakers.
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I’ll make sure to register and try to be more than a... as...I'm Trond and this blog is where I write about things that I find interesting, such as Topic Maps.