paggr: portable web semantics

I've put up the demo I used at the webinale on tuesday. It shows how just a few lines of code can be used to create a (crappy little) semweb app. It's everything but self-explaining, but you can scrape some instructions from the IRC logs to get started, if you really want to test it (you've been warned).

I'm not sure if I'm going to stick to the current "Web 'n' Drop" approach, but at least it shows the possibility to implement URI-based semantic drag and drop.

I more or less finished the first version of the microcontent highlighter last week. But before moving on to the storage layer, I combined the current front-end code with a server-side processor and produced a little test screencast. I'm happy with how the user interaction works so far, but suggestions are always welcome.



The "polymorphic" drag 'n' drop is one of several paggr interaction methods. It will also be possible to directly click on icons in order to invoke resource-specific actions ("add to address book" etc.), and collector is going to support dragging and dropping of embedded links and images, or pasting Live Clipboard content on the collector bar as well.

After reading Nova Spivack's "Web 3.0 Roundup" post today, I started to create a little list of projects and companies that also (seem to) work on solutions for portable/remixable web semantics. Partly larger, well-funded projects, probably nothing which lightweight paggr is really going to compete with (We're more in the "WebCards + SPARQL + Widgets" camp). I'll try to keep the list updated, looks like the space is starting to heat up a little in 2007 (although there don't seem to be many that build on RDF and SPARQL already).

• AdaptiveBlue's BlueOrganizer - "unleashes the information hidden in the pages of your favorite web sites, and allows you to quickly do what you want to do"
• Dapper - "a service which makes it easy to access and distribute content from any website"
• Kapow Technologies - "Web 2.0 Mashup Server software that enables you to connect, collect, and mashup anything on the web"
• Metaweb - Rumors are it's some sort of collaborative web information management and sharing infrastructure. ("Metaweb enables individuals to pursue what matters most to them and dramatically expands their role in enhancing the value of online information.")
• Pipes - Visual RSS feed filtering and remixing
• Radar Networks - "enrich and facilitate more intelligent online relationships, community, content, collaboration and even commerce"
• SIMILE's Solvent, Piggy Bank, and Semantic Bank - Structured content scraper, extractor, and store.
• Teqlo - "Teqlo makes widgets work together"
• Wikidentity - aggregation of and search for hCard microformats

The paggr site is finally online. This project was actually meant to decloak a little earlier, but it took me quite some time to free the necessary resources, decide on a roadmap that will allow me to get testers involved as early and easy as possible, and I'm also still tuning the RDF tools this system is based on.

Now that the prototype comes along quite nicely, it's time to start talking a little more about paggr. Stay tuned, it shouldn't be long before you can play with a first demo.