This is an announcement of the technical report as well as three different implementations of Semantic Pingback.

Semantic Pingback tackles the quality, timeliness and coherence as well as direct end user benefits of the emerging Linked Data Web. Semantic Pingback extends the well-known Pingback method, which is a technological cornerstone of the blogosphere.

It is based on the advertising of an RPC service for propagating typed RDF links between Data Web resources. It is downwards compatible with conventional Pingback implementations, thus allowing to connect and interlink resources on the Social Web with resources on the Data Web.

We implemented the Semantic Pingback mechanism in three different scenarios:

• A Semantic Pingback server and client plugin for OntoWiki
• A Semantic Pingback server integrated in Triplify, thus supporting the interlinking with relational data on the Data Web.
• A standalone Semantic Pingback server was implemented in PHP, that can be utilized with arbitrary resources that do not provide a Pingback service themselves.

If you do not want to provide a Pingback service on your own, you can use the AKSW Semantic Pingback Service which notifies you via email.

AKSW is pleased to announce the first availability of our Adaptive SPARQL Query Cache, a light-weight SPARQL proxy for caching query results and selectively invalidating stored results upon updates. SPARQL-backed applications can be accelerated by simply routing all SPARQL and SPARUL queries through the proxy. In scenarios with recurring query patterns the caching increases responsiveness and overall performance as we validated with an adapted version of the BSBM benchmark. The caching and invalidation was implemented in Java and in PHP and is available together with additional documentation from:

http://aksw.org/Projects/QueryCache

We’ve announced LESS today - an end-to-end approach for the syndication and use of linked data based on the definition of visualization templates for linked data resources and SPARQL query results.

Such syndication templates are edited, published and shared by using LESS’ collaborative Web platform. Templates for common types of entities can then be combined with specific, linked data resources or SPARQL query results and integrated into a wide range of applications, such as personal homepages, blogs/wikis, mobile widgets etc.

LESS and further information and documentation can be found at:

http://less.aksw.org

Particular thanks go to Raphael Doering (Netresearch) who performed most of the development work and to Sebastian Dietzold (AKSW) for contributing in various ways.

OKCon, now in its fifth year, is the interdisciplinary conference that brings together individuals from across the open knowledge spectrum for a day of presentations and workshops.

Open knowledge promises significant social and economic benefits in a wide range of areas from governance to science, from culture to technology. Opening up access to content and data can radically increase access and reuse; improving transparency, fostering innovation and increasing societal welfare.

In addition to high-profile initiatives such as Wikipedia, OpenStreetMap and the Human Genome Project, there is enormous growth among open knowledge projects and communities at all levels. Moreover, in the last year, many governments across the world began to open up their data.

And it doesn’t stop there. In academia, open access to both publications and data has been gathering momentum, and similar calls to open up learning materials have been heard in education. Furthermore, this gathering flood of open data and content is the creator and driver of massive technological change. How can we make this data available, how can we interlink it, how can we use it to collaborate and share our work?

• where: London, UK
• when: Saturday 24th April, 2010
• www: http://www.okfn.org/okcon/
• cfp: http://www.okfn.org/okcon/cfp/ (deadline: Jan 31st 2010)
• hashtag: #okcon2010

Some AKSW members are involved in next year’s Semantic Web in Use Track of the Extended Semantic Web Conference 2010. Yes, its called “Extended”, instead of formerly “European”, in order to reflect the broadening of the topics of interest. Next year’s In-Use track is particularly devoted to:

• Description of concrete problems in specific application domains, for which Semantic Web technologies can provide a solution.
• Description of an implemented application of Semantic Web technologies in a specific domain.
• Assessment of the pros and cons of using Semantic Web technologies to solve a particular business problem or other practical problems in a specific domain.
• Comparison with alternative or competing approaches using conventional or competing technologies.
• Assessment of the costs and benefits of the application of Semantic Web Technologies, e.g. time spent on implementation and deployment, efforts involved, user acceptance, returns on investment.
• Evidence of deployment of the application, and assessment/evaluation of usage/uptake.
• Domains of interest include, but are not limited to: semantics in the enterprise, improving access to governmental data, semantics-based solutions for health care and life sciences, digital libraries, games with a purpose, semantic geo-data management.

More information can be found at: http://www.eswc2010.org/calls/semantic-web-in-use