Tim Berners-Lee said, in 1999:
I have a dream for the Web [in which computers] become capable of analyzing all the data on the Web – the content, links, and transactions between people and computers. A ‘Semantic Web’, which should make this possible, has yet to emerge, but when it does, the day-to-day mechanisms of trade, bureaucracy and our daily lives will be handled by machines talking to machines. The ‘intelligent agents’ people have touted for ages will finally materialize.
Today, the Semantic Web means that data may be re-used in ways unexpected by the original publisher.
What does this mean to technical communicators?
Is the Semantic Web “a good thing” for technical communicators?
Yes it’s a good thing. Yes it means a lot of changes some of which I recently pondered: http://www.onemanwrites.co.uk/2008/05/02/everything-is-connected/
(sorry, it’s a bit cheeky to link to my blog I know but it’s just too long a post to duplicate here)