Here’s a demo of a cool semantic app from Adaptive Blue… it’s called Glue. The app lives on top of the browser as an add-on and intelligently recognizes whatever item you’re browsing on, whether it be a book, movie, song, restaurant, recipe, or wine, and lets you see what your friends thought of it to help you make a decision.

The most interesting part of the demo is at 0:58 where he asks who is involved in vertical/niche social networks for different things such as movies (Flixster) and virtually no one raises their hand. Facebook and Myspace have pretty much grabbed the whole social networking world as far as actual webpages that people visit to interact. Now where the innovation comes in is on top of the browser and on the phone. The only real websites that have a chance these days are dynamic marketplaces (Foodzie, Etsy).

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The biggest problem with technology is complexity. A technology is only as valuable as its ability to be used to provide value. When any technology is too complex it creates barriers to use. Even if a technology has great value, it will see little interest if it’s too complex. And even if the value of the technology is greater than, or commensurate with, its complexity, the lack of use (aka adoption) will be apparent. There may be a general lack of interest to a technology, however if interest is high, and adoption is low, there’s a high probability that complexity is the cause. This can be summed up in a simple equation:

technology adoption is inversely proportional to its complexity / unit value

One technology that fits this complexity equation is the Semantic Web. If you look at the initiatives such as standards, notations, reference implementations, technologies, and even products, a few obvious observations can be made:

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I’d like to introduce Richard Manning, the newest grapethinker to our bunch. Rich, Jake, and I have known each other for about a year now. We hooked up over a common interest in the semantic web, AI, neural networks, genetic algorithms, and a love for bad ass music. We’ve been talking about technology’s application to help optimize our world, mainly in industries where Rich as worked… he’s built neural networks and intelligent agent applications in insurance, banking, and utilities. We’re also really interested in optimizing logistics and inventory management for retailers. Rich worked for Sun Microsystems for a good part of his career and now has his own knowledge engineering consultancy called Siorcgorm. His contributions help us expand our reach as a technology company and we’re absolutely stoked to have him a part of our team!