Giant Global Graph is a new term coined by Tim Berners Lee in an essay on his blog that redefines the semantic web concept. Inspired by the profusion of social networking sites, he contemplates protocols that enable relationships to transcend the document layer, and thus the network.
He gets down to nuts and bolts:
So, if only we could express these relationships, such as my social graph, in a way that is above the level of documents, then we would get re-use. That’s just what the graph does for us. We have the technology — it is Semantic Web technology, starting with RDF OWL and SPARQL. Not magic bullets, but the tools which allow us to break free of the document layer. If a social network site uses a common format for expressing that I know Dan Brickley, then any other site or program (when access is allowed) can use that information to give me a better service. Un-manacled to specific documents.
I express my network in a FOAF file, and that is a start of the revolution. I blogged on FOAF files earlier, before the major open SNS angst started. The data in a FOAF file can be read by other applications. Photo-sharing, travel sites, sites which accept your input because you are a part of the graph.
The less inviting side of sharing is losing some control. Indeed, at each layer — Net, Web, or Graph — we have ceded some control for greater benefits.
People running Internet systems had to let their computer be used for forwarding other people’s packets, and connecting new applications they had no control over. People making web sites sometimes tried to legally prevent others from linking into the site, as they wanted complete control of the user experience, and they would not link out as they did not want people to escape. Until after a few months they realized how the web works. And the re-use kicked in. And the payoff started blowing people’s minds.
Letting your data connect to other people’s data is a bit about letting go in that sense. It is still not about giving to people data which they don’t have a right to. It is about letting it be connected to data from peer sites. It is about letting it be joined to data from other applications.
It is about getting excited about connections, rather than nervous.
