The Semantic Web is like a Box of Chocolates
The Semantic Web has had its challenges over the years in trying to become mainstream. One of the most promising subareas (that has the best chance) is Linked Data. Not that LD is dependent on the SW - all you really need is consistent and persistent URIs and a way to say “sameAs” in a number of ways....SKOS could help here.
Anyway, TBL’s recent talk entitled “Linked data: it's is not like that; it's like a bag of potato chips” (see the video and blog) was not the answer. LD is not like a Bag of Chips. The information on the back has been standardised by government and social requirements. There is no linking between a “nut allergy” on a Italian bag of chips to an Australian bag of chips. The analogy falls short.
I agree there needs to be better efforts to explain all parts of the SW to broaden it’s impact, and we really need good use cases, analogies, stories to do it....
Other wise we will end up with the Semantic Web being like a box of chocolates !