Y. Gil et al. (Eds.): ISWC 2005, LNCS 3729 , pp. 1041 – 1049, 2005. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2005 The Concept Object Web for Knowledge Management James Starz, Brian Kettler, Peter Haglich, Jason Losco, Gary Edwards, and Mark Hoffman ISX Corporation, 4301 N. Fairfax Dr. Suite 370, Arlington, VA 22203, USA {jstarz, bkettler, phaglich, jlosco, gedwards, mhoffman}@isx.com Abstract. The Semantic Web is a difficult concept for typical end-users to comprehend. There is a lack of widespread understanding on how the Semantic Web could be used in day-to-day applications. While there are now practical applications that have appeared supporting back-end functions such as data in- tegration, there is only a handful of Semantic Web applications that the average Google user would want to use on a regular basis. The Concept Object Web 1 is a prototype application for knowledge/intelligence management that aggregates data from text documents, XML files, and databases so that end-users can visu- ally discover and learn about knowledge object (entities) without reading documents. The application addresses limitations with current knowl- edge/intelligence management tools giving end-users the power of the Semantic Web without the perceived burden and complexity of the Semantic Web. 1 Introduction Since the creation of the Semantic Web there have been a large number of tools cre- ated that have proven its theoretical use and provided the infrastructure for application development. However, there have been very few Semantic Web applications that would be acceptable to most end users. There are many reasons this is the case as the technology is still emerging, but the foremost reason is that is currently difficult to do. Only recently have the underlying infrastructure tools matured to be used in real ap- plications. Additionally, almost no end user will ever want to see OWL, URIs, on- tologies, and the rest of the backbone of the Semantic Web. Our experience with building and integrating Semantic Web applications has shown us the difficulties of providing functionality to users that do not care that the application uses the Semantic Web. The Concept Object Web, built on top of ISX’s Semantic Object Web™ [6], is a prototype application for knowledge/intelligence management that tries to address many of the challenges of making a user friendly and useful Semantic Web application. The Semantic Object Web approach extends the Semantic Web by focusing on how users and software agents can more easily 1 Demo available at http://semanticobjectweb.isx.com