We just released version 0.4 of the Triplify script. After the initial release several months ago we made quite some additions and bug fixes the most important of which are:

• Update log functionality added - allows Semantic Web crawlers to get incremental updates, see http://triplify.org/vocabulary/update
• linked data publication now also works without Apache’s mod_rewrite
• Syntax for indicating objectProperties added, e.g.:SELECT id,user_id 'sioc:has_creator->user'
• Additional metadata can now be added via $triplify[’metadata’]
• The configuration variable $triplify[’CallbackFunctions’] allows programmatic post processing of DB content

Thanks to everybody contributing bug fixes or comments (especially Sebastian Hellmann, Danh Le Phuoc, Rolf Strathewerd, Elias Theodorou).

Out of the submissions for the LOD Triplification Challenge we received eight were nominated to win one of the three prizes. The submissions and demos can be viewed on the challenge nominations page. The final decision about the winners of the challenge will be made by the organizing committee. The prizes will be awarded at I-SEMANTICS 2008, 3–5 September 2008, Graz, Austria.

Please vote for your personal favorite (using the poll widget on the nominations page) and invite your friends and colleagues to do so as well. Although this will not have a formal influence on the committee decision the winner of the community vote will draw more attention and finally earn a honorable mention.

Danh Le Phouc (a computer science PhD student from DERI Galway) is starting the Google Summer of Code project “Joomla! semantification - expose Joomla data as RDF and Linked Data”. Danh already created a first guess for a Joomla! Triplify configuration (available at http://triplify.org/Configuration/Joomla)). Work of the project will focus on tighter integrating Triplify into Joomla! and showcasing the benefits of of the Joomla! triplification to the user community. The GSoC project is mentored by Sören.

Together with this years I-Semantics conference we are organizing a Linking Open Data Triplification Challenge.

The challenge aims at expediting the process of revealing and exposing structured (relational) representations, which already back most of the existing Web sites, as well as raising awareness in the Web Developer community and showcasing best practices.

The challenge awards attractive prices (MacBook Air, EeePC, iPod) to the most innovative and promising semantifications. The prizes are kindly sponsored by OpenLink Software, Punkt.NetServices and InfAI.

More Information about the challenge can be found at:

http://triplify.org/Challenge

Outreach to the Web developer communities (as intended with the challenge) is really crucial right now to expedite the Semantic Web deployment and we would be very excited if you support this effort - e.g. by spreading the word and/or submitting to the challenge.

We just release a new version of our Web application plugin Triplify, which exposes structured data from relational databases as Linked Date, RDF, and JSON. This release contains a number of bugfixes and impovements. Most notable the compatibility with PHP4 was improved and the possibility to add meta-data to your RDF added.

These are the changes in V0.3 (08-04-2008):
* added owl:imports statement importing the vocabulary
* added rdfs:comment about generator
* configuration variable “register” added
* Syntax for indicating objectProperties added:
SELECT id,user_id ’sioc:has_creator->user’
* Configuration variable $triplify[’cachedir’] added
* proper UTF8 encoding of literals added (thanks to Rolf Strathewerd)
* Configuration variable $triplify[’license’] added
* Configuration variable $triplify[’LinkedDataDepth’] added
* Configuration variable $triplify[’metadata’] added
* Configuration variable $triplify[’CallbackFunctions’] added