Of the two manifestations of the machine-readable web, Web Services took off quickest and has already become a fact of life. That's not surprising: Web Services are defined and promoted by a bunch of companies. Companies are good at getting things made quickly and encouraging people to use them.
The Semantic Web, on the other hand, has been academia's contribution to this endeavour. As befits these roots, it's visionary — arguably to the point of delusion — and its moving forward v... e... r... y... ... s... l... o... w... l... y.
But companies never act except in their own interests and this can sometimes lead them into feuds that are counter-productive for their customers. There are signs that this sort of bickering might now hold up Web Services.
The Semantic Web, by contrast, long criticised for its lack of useful applications, continues to grow bit by bit.
Web Services is clearly centre stage today while the Semantic Web lingers in the wings. But would you bet on that staying true for 5 or 10 years? I wouldn't. The Semantic Web's time in the limelight will come, and probably sooner than you think.
Posted by timo at July 18, 2003 10:13 PM | TrackBack