"Joshua Allen" <joshuaa@m...> writes:

> It's the same quality that I think differentiates the
> vision of "semantic web" from utilities like Google (or MSN Search for
> that matter).
> 
> The critical quality is universal openness.  To get hypermedia published
> on CompuServe or AOL, you had to strike a deal with the network.

> By the same token, if I want to get a new field of metadata published in
> Google's index, it's even more difficult.  I don't even know who to pay.

I don't know how MSN works, but I hear that Google pride themselves in
the fact that they don't let special interests pay them off. "I don't
know who to pay" may be an interesting antonym to "openness", but I
hope it's not universal.

The problem with proprietary, ahem, ecosystems is that some arbitrary
entity decides who gets a chance and who doesn't. Again, I don't use
MSN, so I can't say about them. But I've never had reason to believe
Google discriminates content based on authorship. It will even index
proprietary, closed formats such as Word an Excel. Make your format
interesting for enough people and Google might index it. Now let's see
Microsoft(R) develop an open format that will be interesting for
enough people for Google to index.

Ari.

-- 
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