Similar to the tradition of fine old British pubs who feature 'guest' ales to complement the standard fare, it seems SchemaWeb is becoming a haven for new XML alternatives to RDF/XML syntax. Joining TriX and the homegrown TriplesML, we now feature feeds in the Regular XML RDF (RXR) format on each and every schema details page.

RXR was unveiled by sem supremo Dave Beckett recently at XML Europe during his talk 'Modernising Semantic Web Markup'.

Hopefully work in this area will result in a single open standard format soon before we run out of menu space!

The Semantic Web hit prime time yesterday when BBC Radio 4 programme 'The Material World' devoted half a show to things semmy. Helping out presenter Quentin Cooper were eminent semsperts, Wendy Hall from the University of Southampton and Jim Hendler from the University of Maryland. These two gave a lucid and interesting explanation of this er... difficult subject.

Topics included software agents, ontologies (dear to our hearts at SchemaWeb) and trust. A big plug for FOAF too. Top stuff.

Wendy closed the show with the prediction that the Semantic Web would be a reality within ten years. Crikey - we better get a move on!

Hear it again (and again) on the BBC archive.

XML Europe gets underway next week in Amsterdam and once again top sem warriors will be in action on and off the podium.

Semantic highlights include:

Ontology-Driven Topic Maps by Bernard Vatant
Modernising Semantic Web Markup by Dave Beckett
Crawling the Semantic Web by Matt Biddulph
Semantic Blogging: Spreading the Semantic Web Meme by Stephen A Cayzer
Treehugger: The RDF Model Meets XPath by Damian Steer
RDF, XForms, and the Law - Staying Out of Gaol by Charles McCathieNevile
RDF/XHTML: A New RDF Syntax by Steven Pemberton

And not to forget the closing keynote, The State of XML by Edd Dumbill where I suspect RDF and FOAF might get a wee mention.

If you are as crazy about RDF and OWL schemas as we are, you might like to point your RSS readers at Last Updated Schemas, a brand new feed at SchemaWeb which reports schemas which have recently been upgraded to new versions.

This joins the original Latest Schemas feed for new schemas published in the directory to provide complete coverage of all recent SchemaWeb activity and timely information for those who just 'have to know'.

Semwebbers planning this year's hectic conference season might also like to subscribe to Semantic Web Events, a calendar hosted at SemaView's excellent eventSherpa server.

All SchemaWeb's machine readable offerings can be viewed on the Web Services page.

Top semsters will be packing their swimming togs, sun lotion and scuba gear as well as their laptops this weekend and traveling to the Semantic Web Interest Group (SWIG) meeting in Cannes in the beautiful South of France next Monday and Tuesday. The SWIG bash is part of the W3C Technical Plenary Meeting which continues for the rest of the week.

Chaired by the 'Father of FOAF' Dan Brickley, the meeting has a packed agenda with contributions from, amongst many others, Libby Miller who talks about RDF Calendar and also the interesting work in progress on RDF image annotation and 'our man on the Med' Danny Ayers who travels over the border from his home in Italy to talk about using XHTML Outlines and XSLT to extract RDF from web pages and his own implementation XOW.

Rumour has it however that the real action will be at the beach bar where the detailed planning for the recently announced Semantic Web Activity Phase 2 will be taking place between other strenuous activities such as the traditional beach tennis match between the 'URI is an identifier' and the 'URI is a physical resource' camps.

Phase 2 will see the creation of two new Working Groups, the Semantic Web Best Practices and Deployment WG and the RDF Data Access WG. SchemaWeb users will be pleased to see that the Best Practices and Deployment WG charter contains the following fragment:

We are honoured!

Dan Brickley reports on a FOAF workshop planned for September 1 and 2 in Galway, Republic of Ireland as part of the SWAD-Europe initiative. All code monkeys, profs and business blokes with an interest in FOAFy matters are urged to contribute papers and practical demonstrations. Details are to be published soon so stay tuned.

My only concern is whether there are enough hotels in Galway to accommodate the expected army of FOAFsters who will descend on this beautiful Irish town. Derek and I will be hitching up the caravan to the old jalopy and taking the Holyhead ferry over to the Emerald Isle so no problems for us and a very convenient journey from the SchemaWeb summer base beneath Snowdon in North Wales.

And as this is Ireland, no doubt large quantities of http://www.purl.org/net/ontology/beer#Stout will be oiling the semantic wheels.

Semrockers SWIG, the group after which the Semantic Web Interest Group is named, were recently seen in action at the W3C Technical Plenary in the South of France. This snap catches the band, featuring guitar ace and W3C top person Dan Connolly giving it some 'Jimi', as they tear through a stonking set of Busted and Captain Beefheart covers.

Rumour is rife that these potential chart toppers have signed an exclusive deal with ex Beatles tea-boy, Max Clifford who will represent them on this year's world tour of semweb conferences and jollies.

Careful with those hotel TVs guys!

[ Picture from Libby via the RDFWeb co-depiction service complete with RDF meta. ]

Web technologists who are still undecided about that big leap into RDF might take heart from the experience of my own developer, Derek.

The picture below is Derek as I found him just a short year ago in Denbigh, situated in the heart of the 'silicon valley' of North Wales. The poor bloke was on the rocks, desperate for even Access database or ActionScript work.

And now, after making the move to RDF, we see that Derek is now a go-ahead semantic web executive with a large desk and two computers.

Now isn't that living proof that RDF does you (and your wallet) good, all you RDF sceptics!

A minor update to the mighty FOAF schema hit the shops last weekend. A new class 'PersonalProfileDocument' and new property 'primaryTopic' will now make it easier to indicate who a particular FOAF file is about, a much sought after requirement by the big men (and women) of social software.

Check this for example usage of these new terms.

A new property 'tipjar' also makes it in. No comment as I have absolutely no idea what this means. Is it some 'yoof' style slang? Please help an old fella out!

A big boost for FOAF came today with the publishing of an new version in OWL of the Relationship schema. Authors Eric Vitiello and Ian Davis have enhanced and extended this classic with glittering array of new properties and a new Relationship class.

Schemas speak louder than words so here is the breakdown.

Terms inherited from the last version:
friendOf
acquaintanceOf
ambivalentOf
antagonistOf
enemyOf
parentOf
childOf
grandchildOf
siblingOf
spouseOf

New relationship terms to link foaf:Person to foaf:Person:
closeFriendOf
hasMet
knowsOf
wouldLikeToKnow
knowsInPassing
knowsByReputation
lostContactWith
employerOf
employedBy
mentorOf
apprenticeTo
worksWith
colleagueOf
collaboratesWith
neighborOf
livesWith
lifePartnerOf
engagedTo
grandparentOf
ancestorOf
descendantOf

Two new properties that link foaf:Person with the new Relationship class:
participantIn
participant

Derek, my developer, and I have been furiously recoding our FOAF files. I have linked to him twice using rel:employerOf and rel:mentorOf and have urged him to link to me with rel:apprenticeTo. He keeps muttering that rel:employedBy would be more suitable except that he hasn't been paid for the last two months. Honestly, some people!

Congratulations to Eric and Ian on this fine piece of work.