Catching up with Structured Data

Matthew BrownSMX Advanced 2012

Photo: flickr: dullhunk

Matthew BrownSlideshare: MatthewBrownPDXTwitter: @MatthewJBrown

matthew@audiencewise.com

http://www.portlandground.com/archives/2003/05/steel_bridge_an.php

Basic Overview of what the ‘semantic web’ is

Structured Data = Data organized by a hierarchy or schema. Can be organized and searched.

Linked Data = Publishing structured data so it can be accessed at a URI.

Linked Open Data = A cloud of linked data sites that promote open standards and linking to one another

Semantic Web = The web of globally accessible, interlinked data.

@MatthewJbrown

So where are the search engines at with the semantic web?

Google Knowledge Graph = Nothing New. More emphasis.

Bing has less semantic search results, but has deals with both Twitter and Facebook

Image: Thos003

Don’t sleep on Facebook. They’ve got a huge open graph of data

Protip: Use Open Graph Markup in addition to schema, etc.

Open Graph

Schema

@MatthewJbrown

Structured Data Tools

Schema Creator from Raven: http://schema-creator.org/

Local Business Microdata Generator: http://microdatagenerator.org/

Rich Snippets Bookmarklet: http://www.blindfiveyearold.com/rich-snippets-testing-tool-bookmarklet

Bing Webmaster Tools Markup Validator

http://linter.structured-data.org – Industrial Strength Structured Data Display

Sindice.com – Semantic web search engine. Good way to see what sites are doing with linked data

Also be on the lookout for new proposed data schemas

@MatthewJbrown

Semantic Tech and Linked Data – Why should I care?

JUST MAKE GREAT CONTENT!!!111

Semantic Data can create unique content in all sorts of ways

Jay Myers (@jaymyers) of Best Buy advocates semantic data to improve customer experience. (example is mine).

Zip Codes from Data.gov

List of College Towns from dbpedia

BBC and the 2012 Olympics: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/bbcinternet/2012/04/sports_dynamic_semantic.html

Point Blank SEO’s guide to data visualizations: http://pointblankseo.com/visualizations

@MatthewJbrown

Getting started with semantic tech

Linked Data is stored in RDF. These are called ‘triples.’

http://www.seoskeptic.com/seo-semantic-web/Great overview of the Semantic Web here

SPARQL is the query language for RDF data

http://www.amazon.com/Learning-SPARQL-Bob-DuCharme/dp/1449306594

http://richard.cyganiak.de/2007/10/lod/lod-datasets_2011-09-19_colored.html - Linking Open Data Cloud

http://www.kasabi.com- Data Marketplace for using and publishing linked data

Example of how to use a food-related SPARQL query on a Kasabi dataset

Many APIs are available on Kasabi, for ease of use with some datasets

Be on the lookout for new linked datasets

No Data Format specified yet, but it’ll probably have a SPARQL endpoint

Drupal has functionality to consume and publish RDF data. Guide to getting up and running at: http://semantic-drupal.com/

LODSPeaKr – Simple Publishing Kit for Linked Data - http://alangrafu.github.com/lodspeakr/

Example of a LODSPeaKr application pulling Farmer’s Market data and city information (Hi Rhea!)

@MatthewJbrown

Add Semantic Tech to your SEO diet

Learn what entities are.http://justinbriggs.org/entity-search-results-the-on-going-evolution-of-search

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KuAaa6lZxAU

There’s a ton of resources on the web to get you started

http://learnlinkeddata.com/articles Linked Data Primer – Start Here

http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/library/x-disprdf/index.htmlIBM Developer Works tutorial on how to combine data

Reading List

http://searchnewscentral.com/20110207129/Technical/rdfa-the-inside-story-from-best-buy.htmlInterview with Jay Myers, Lead Development Engineer for Best Buy

http://www.w3.org/2011/Talks/0607-SemTech-RDFa-IH/Talk.pdfGreat intro to RDFa and highlights Best Buy, Overstock, Examiner.com

http://semanticweb.com/introduction-to-rdf_b17953 - Dead simple intro to RDF and associated vocabularies and tools. SemanticWeb.com rules.

These Folks Pay Attention to the Semantic Web

Follow ListFolks who have some SEO/Semantic Web crossover:

Aaron Bradley - @aaranged – Hands down the best curator of semantic happenings on the SEO side. When he blogs at http://www.seoskeptic.com it’s not to be missed.

Jeff Preston - @JeffreyPreston – Lead SEO at Disney Corp. Happens to be speaking at the Semantic Web 2012 conference

Sean Golliher - @SeanGolliher – Publisher of SEMJ – writes occasionally for http://www.semanticweb.com

Jay Myers - @jaymyers – Best Buy lead dev and RDFa proponent. He’s the man responsible for Best Buy’s 30% CTR increase with rich snippets.

Dan Brickley - @DanBri – Schema.org outreach for Google, works on proposed Schema.org specs

Prepare to understand 15% of what they say

Warning: Your head might explodeSemantic Tech Folks who are very smart and say things I don’t get:

Martin Hepp- @MFHepp– Heads up Good Relations, which is the most extensive ontology for e-commerce data

Manu Sporny - @ManuSporny – Leader of the W3C working group for RDF. The man leading the charge for the RDF spec.

Lin Clark - @LinClark – Works on the linked data/RDF integration for Drupal. Codes neat linked data things for Drupal.

Gregg Kellogg - @Gkellogg – Semantic Web Developer of all trades. Wrote the Structured Data Linter.

Aaron Bradley’s Semantic Web100 Twitter Group: https://twitter.com/#!/SemanticWeb/semanticweb100 - Like tapping into the Matrix of semantic tech information.

Thank you!Slideshare: MatthewBrownPDXmatthew@audiencewise.com

twitter: @matthewjbrown

LinkedIn: MatthewBrownPDX