...companies involved in the Common Tag initiative (AdaptiveBlue, DERI (NUI Galway), Faviki, Freebase, Yahoo!, Zemanta, and Zigtag) are hoping to deliver on the promises of a semantic driven internet. As detailed in the press release:

Common Tag is an open tagging format developed to make content more connected, discoverable and engaging

Before I go into the details of Common Tag, for those of you wondering what the heck the semantic web is all about, heres a mash-up definition Ive created from a few different sources:

The Semantic Web provides a common framework that allows data to be shared and reused across application, enterprise, and community boundaries. Its an extension of the current Web that will allow you to find, share, and combine information more easily.

In a nutshell under the semantic web will see information/data within traditional web documents tagged in a common format so that machines and people can more easily process it.

So how will Common Tag help to see Semantic reach its potential?

The biggest challenge with the semantic web is deciding on a convention that everyone agrees on. Many of the frameworks proponents want to develop their own methodology. Without a single direction, the concept falls over.

Common Tag promises to deliver a framework that will overcome the current shortcoming of tagging conventions.

The Common Tag format was developed to address the current shortcomings of tagging and help everyone"including end users, publishers, and developers"get more out of Web content. With Common Tag, content is tagged with unique, well-defined concepts

Common Tag also provides access to useful metadata that defines each concept and describes how the concepts relate to one another.

While the virtues of Common Tag are definitely noble and make sense as we continue to produce mass amounts of information at unfathomable rates " but is it realistic?

Its hard to tell whether it will ever really take off. Its like W3C Guidelines. Whilst created with the greatest of intentions, getting everyone to adopt them is challenging.

And whilst Im no web developer, it looks like creating applications and web content will be far more involved and complex than currently. Lets face it " complacency/laziness has seen many of the best concepts fall by the way side.

From a search engine and SEO point of view, the likes of Common Tag and other Semantic frameworks will be a great way to help define the relevance of content, but potentially are equally susceptible to abuse.

• Are you a fan of the Semantic concept?
• Would you go the effort of implementing a semantic framework within your website?
• Do you think Common Tag can deliver on Semantic where others have failed?

Share your thoughts below

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