> Just to throw some oil on the fire :-)
>
> http://www.well.com/~doctorow/metacrap.htm
>
> What is better, Google's lies or web publisher's lies? Who knows?
If you had been following the thread, you would have seen the issue
already addressed. The assumption that "semantic web" means "metadata
produced by a publisher about his own pages" is invalid, and is the
straw man upon which much of the "metacrap" arguments lie.
Furthermore, it's not an issue of Google vs. "semantic web". The two
are completely orthogonal. Google/MSN could index triples if they
chose. Google/MSN could expose their derived metadata (page rank, etc.)
using an open triples format if they chose. In fact, the two could be
very complimentary.
The fact that someone wrote a flame piece without the slightest
understanding of the actual issues does not surprise me. This happens
often on the Internet. However, the fact that otherwise intelligent
people cite the screed without being able to defend it, and without
using their own brains to understand the actual issues, *does* surprise
me.
