You probably already heard about the Facebook's new OpenGraph Protocol. It represents a new way of making connections between topics people like around the web, thus embedding metadata within the webpages itself. Why is Facebook doing this ? Does it want (really) to act as a social hub platform for bridging the Semantic Web to reality?
Finally a big player enters the Semantic Web realm. One that is recognizable all over the world. One that people have confidence in. One that promises to be powerful enough, to integrate topics from different webpages and connect them to corresponding people. One that will get rid of the chicken-and-the-egg vicious circle of Semantic annotation and Semantic Applications. One graph to rule them all : Facebook's OpenGraph.
Facebook, the Chicken and the Egg
Facebook apparently is trying to motivate webmasters to start embedding semantics into webpages, similarly to how meta keywords and meta description tags are embedded today for SEO. That would eventually give the desired push and stable ground for Semantic Applications to be finally built. People are already familiar with this way of embedding metadata, thus the motivation for them lies in the fact that Facebook will utilize that metadata whenever someone puts the mouse over the link that describes how a person "likes" something. But what is happening in background ? Is this simplified mapping to Facebook's ontology one step driven by the desire for people to share what they really like around different platforms ? Does Facebook have hidden intentions in this whole story ?
The Impact on Ordinary Users
Well, what do average users get from the Social Graph ? Of course, they could leverage this new feature in order to spread the word about services/products they prefer or offer, providing additional fuel to marketing in Social Media. From that aspect, users will get even more specific recommendations from friends about things that might interest them. Of course, friends have similar interests and there is a good chance that they will at least be intrigued about what one's friends like. Moreover, "like" web sites that aggregate Facebook page titles and groups have begin to emerge. Some users find this aggregation amusing.
Facebook Flaws in Semantics : Why ?
As it was recently published in a post on Read Write Web , Facebook did leave flaws in embedding semantics in web pages. Some of them are known to Semantic Web enthusiasts from long time ago, such as the ambiguity problem when identifying resources. In terms of the OpenGraph protocol, there is no means to denote that two resources on the Web refer to actually the same thing. Therefore, integration between heterogeneous systems is not easy at all. Secondly, items with same names refer to same things although they point to different terms. This means there is no way to denote that a page is relevant to the car Jaguar, not the animal jaguar. Furthermore, the OpenGraph leaves no way to build relations between resources, assuming that the only relation is : is_relevant_to . This relation applies to web pages and items and items to people, respectively. This conclusion comes since there is no way to embed multiple objects into a single web page.
The Open Advertising Protocol
This is not something that Facebook publicly says, but if one gets into little deeper thinking, becomes obvious. Facebook is not concerned about allowing people brag to the others what they like. The company is concerned about mapping the users' interests in another graph, which I take the freedom to name it Open Advertising Protocol. It refers to a graph that will try to make connections between topics that might interest the user and her social graph, individually and in groups. What this means is the following: Facebook is trying to gain information about the meaning of the things because it needs more precise targeting for its personalized ads! It is fairly simple. Every time a user presses the "Like" button, Facebook gains insight on that user's interests! By having this knowledgebase at hand, Facebook will soon have enough data to improve their Ad targeting algorithm. What is even scarier, even if one does not press the "Like" button, they will be able to map your interests roughly based on your friend's interests! One might think: Fine, then people will eventually stop hitting that button once they realize this. But hold on a second! Facebook was created to fulfill a human need for social interaction, an interaction that was not satisfied by any other media before ! The point is, people are not that inert as one might think! "Like" it or not, the Big Face will be able to find out who we are, who we hang out with, what are we interested in aaaand ... what companies have better chance of selling to us!
What do you think? What is the reason for Facebook to enter this Semantic Web Game ? Why does it leave flaws, although it has both knowledge and infrastructure to make it differently? Does it really want help people share things they like or this is just a preparation for the Perfect Advertising Tool and even bigger profit ?
Posts
2 comments:
You are Bang On! The very same thoughts flashed in my mind when I read about the 'Open Graph Protocol' for the first time. I think its quite obvious why a closed company like FaceBook would make efforts to patronize semantic web (which does not still have a killer app).
The Business model behind this is definitely more advertising. The entire Web traffic redirected towards facebook. Thats a very cool idea that makes a lot of business sense and should give companies like google something to worry about.
But anyways hope this would give semantic web the much needed push.
:) Rajesh.
Thank you for posting your comment, Rajesh. I think that this will give the Semantic Web a push proportional to the time needed for web owners to see the results of embedding the metadata in the web pages.
And if this Open Graph thing continues to move in this direction, I think I will be soon able to write a semantic recommendation app like I describe in this post Google, meet Facebook's OpenGraph
Post a Comment