developing web 2.0 websites and social web strategies; research for next-generation semantic web infrastructures; social semantic applications; e-government and open standards;
Archive for Updates
March 20, 2009
Topics: Collaboration, Linked Data, Services, Standards, Updates
Wow. This sounds really great:
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 $800 billion dollar economic stimulus will be spent. The recently launched recovery.gov website (powered by nothing other then Drupal) brought with it the promise that citizens would be able to view where the money was going and how it was going to be spent.
To enable the citizen masher to do their wizardry, the administration will be opening up a veritable candy store of goodies: Semantic Web, RDF, Linked Data, SPARQL, RDFa, SIOC, ATOM, RESTful APIs, JSON, Widgets, Wikis, XForms, P2P Networks. Wow. They only forgot the lions and tigers and bears oh my… This is an unbelievable stack of technology. I didn’t think the government even knew what an RSS feed was :)
For more information read the full article on sitepoint.com.
March 17, 2009
Topics: Collaboration, Updates
about 24 hours ago. i asked on #twitter about online social #fundraising — some hours later i was reading a tweet from @zoernert about donating 75$ at Kiva — “anyone who likes to pick a 3rd world entrepreneur to support” was the invitation.
i decided for Fathullo Juraev, Farakh Mansurov and Ikromidin Boboev from Shahrituz, Tajikistan about 11 hour ago. Thorsten Zoerner started the fundraising for 3 micro loans.
Some hours later we had three happy farmers in Tajikistan! 1.400 + 675 + 450 = 2.525 USD — all is donated! Great! Only in a few hours :)
Here are some screens from the start of linking/tracking the 3 sites with bit.ly:
fantastic:
Disbursal Date: Mar 13, 2009
Date Posted: Mar 16, 2009
Date Funded: Mar 17, 2009
Because all three of them now already have all the money needed I’m going to donate my 75$ to female entrepreneurs in Africa fundraising money for food projects. Thanks #Kiva for that service!
Thanks Torsten & all of the donators of Kiva.org! Please spread the word (twitter or reblog) about #Kiva and register now for free at kiva.org! Subscribe also to the Kiva.org RSS/Atom Feed. Thanks.
About Kiva.org
Kiva is a nonprofit, p2p-lending site that facilitates loans between lenders and extremely low-income entrepreneurs in developing countries. Lenders can find the business and entrepreneur they want to lend to based on region, business type, risk level, etc. Each posted loan is accompanied with bios for the respective entrepreneur, details on the why and what the loan is going to be used for, total amount raised from other lenders, loan duration (usually 6-12 months) and loan default risk.
Taking small payments, usually $25, from a bunch of Kiva lenders raises the loans. Once a loan’s full amount has been raised it is transferred using PayPal to one of Kiva’s field partners. Field partners are local microfinance institutions (MFIs) in developing countries that find, track and manage entrepreneurs and then disburse and collect the microloans. When loans have been repaid fully they are transferred back to Kiva and then to Kiva lenders via PayPal.
More about Tajikistan
Tajikistan is perhaps best known for its rich history, which includes being a key post along the Silk Road and being the location of the end of the rule of Alexander the Great. It is also known for its famous great thinkers, philosophers, scientists and poets, such as Rudaki, Ibn Sina (Avicenna), Firdousi, Omar Haiyam, Jomi, Mavlavi Rumi, and many others. The country, filled with epic mountain passes, is home to communities that still speak the ancient Sogdian language, and boasts a civilization that dates back to the fourth millennium BC. Even today, it is a complex mixture of the Islamic faith, Soviet culture, New West culture and Central Asian traditions.
But Tajikistan is also the poorest of the former Soviet republics. The civil war, which ignited soon after its independence from the U.S.S.R., further damaged the already weak economy. In addition, 93 percent of the country is mountainous and only 7 percent of the land is arable. These conditions have resulted in high levels of unemployment and have forced hundreds of thousands to seek work in other countries, mainly Russia. While the people of Tajikistan are working to improve its agricultural production and manufacturing sector, nearly two-thirds of the population still live in abject poverty.
March 6, 2009
Topics: Conferences, Labs, Linked Data, Partners, Products, QR Code, Standards, Updates
I’m taking a trip to San Jose between June 15th and June 19th to the Semantic Technology Conference and visiting http://ricohinnovations.com because of #qrcode stuff and #iCandy in Menlo Park.
February 26, 2009
Topics: Labs, Mobile, Prototype, Services, Updates
So. What is Semantic Web aka. Web 3.0 aka. Linked Data? Why for people? It’s for machines. Stupid. Web 2.0 is for them ;)
Sometimes something starts with/on twitter. Please. Do not click ;)
Are there use cases of Semantic Web? Which people use? Not only “geeks”.
AustriaPro has developed an ontology called ebSemantics for the description of events and venues and other parts of the tourism sector.
Some days ago at the SIMsKultur Online project the OpenEvent RDF export was implemented for all events. By the way, you can also log-in with your Facebook account without extra registration.
Ok. Now we have an OpenEvent RDF file of the event “Diana Thater - gorillagorillagorilla” at “Kunsthaus Graz am Landesmuseum Joanneum“. This information is on http://simskultur.net.
Then we have there for example tupalo.com. They have reviews about “Kunsthaus Graz“. They want to provide more information for their users. They are going to implement the OpenEvent RDF data from @simskultur.
SIMsKultur Online is happy about the traffic from Tupalo when people are looking for more details about the event programm. It would also be nice to show the reviews from @tupalo on the SIMsKultur website and link back.
Now. How to match that data? Use the name of the venue? Nope. Not really the same. But could match. Use the address of the venue. Would also be possible that it could match in 90 - 95 %.
Linked Data to the rescue. SIMsKultur Online will be linking in the RDF file of the venue/event to Wikipedia and DBpedia or Freebase — owl:sameAs
If sites like tupalo.com or essenfinden.at are using ebSemantics and “owl:sameAs” it’s no problem to identify and import/update data accross the systems.
Nice. Visitors on tupalo.com and simskultur.net get data in very good quality.
July 14, 2008
Topics: Labs, Open Source, Prototype, Services, Software, Updates
“better.del.icio.us” is a prototype for searching del.icio.us and analyzing the websites with zemanta to get related articles, images and extract links to special topics on wikipedia and other websites.
you can also compare the auto generated tags with the human tags from del.icio.us users.
do you have any feedback? drop a line on twitter via mail or leave a comment.
June 12, 2008
Topics: Open Source, Software, Updates
Graph Gear is an open platform for graph visualization (the mathematical kind, not the bar chart kind). It allows you to create an interactive graph with force directed layout that has a good interactive user experience.
Read the rest of this entry »
June 8, 2008
Topics: Updates
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