The Internet and Web have enabled easy and nearly instantaneous dissemination and exchange of different types of information almost free of cost. Most informa- tion currently on the Web is document (page) based and presented in textual natural language, because it is primarily meant for use by humans. It’s hard for com- puters to understand and make use of this information content, as it may lack structure, precise meaning, or context, or because a given word or phrase could refer to more than one thing. The Semantic Web is an evolv- ing extension of the World Wide Web in which Web content can be expressed not only in natural language, but also in a format that can be read and used by com- puters, thus permitting a more automated and effective way to find, share, and integrate information. Semantic Web technologies (SWTs) facilitate exchange of infor- mation among various applications in a meaningful way by providing precise and unique meaning and context to the content and easing interaction between the human users and a computer system, or between two computer applications. A semantic enterprise (SE) is an organization that uses SWTs in its communications, business processes, soft- ware applications, structured information (data) archi- tecture, and unstructured information (e.g., multimedia content) delivery, resulting in deployment of new kinds of applications that were otherwise infeasible — or pre- viously unimaginable. By integrating and using infor- mation from disparate, incompatible sources in a cohesive and meaningful way, an SE is better able to enhance and personalize the experience it provides to its users, create and effectively use new bodies of knowledge from the information available within and outside the organization, and become a more agile busi- ness by dynamically adapting its business processes depending on the situation or user context. By exploit- ing the technologies of the Semantic Web, an SE can create a people-machine continuum that enhances business agility. UNDERSTANDING THE SEMANTIC WEB As we noted above, the Semantic Web is a meaningful Web. This means that SWTs offer substantially more value than mere sophistication in exchange and shared use of information. They not only make it easier to con- nect content that may be residing in different informa- tion silos, but also enable applications to learn through the process of execution. Consider, for example, a user who wants to buy a music video. Instead of making the user specify the title and related details of the music video, a semantic application can utilize the user’s “hints” and the overall context or environment in which he is operating to help narrow the search and identify the music video he is looking for, thereby personalizing and enhancing the user experience. The system could also learn the user’s preferences and perceived interests from his previous purchases and queries and so offer smarter and more tailored responses when he tries to purchase another music video or, perhaps, a totally dif- ferent item. Applications based on semantic technologies open up opportunities for the organization to dynami- cally gain new knowledge pertaining to its users, knowl- edge that can then be used to positively affect the organization’s internal and external processes and its overall operating environment. The Semantic Web is a combination of people-centric technologies with machine-understandable semantics that results in an ontology of data, information, and knowledge. Such an “ontology” can be open and shared and/or owned and maintained by an organization that provides it, along with the standards for exchange of information and the rules for interpreting it. The Semantic Web also provides the basis for the provision- ing and consumption of dynamically created bodies of knowledge for organizations that collaborate to supply a product or service to the user. Ontological approaches are used to create a knowledge base of users, which is built based on the initial under- standing of the users together with their interests, ©2009 Cutter Information LLC CUTTER IT JOURNAL September 2009 24 Accruing Business Value Through the Adoption of Semantic Web Technologies by Bhuvan Unhelkar and San Murugesan ENHANCING THE USER EXPERIENCE