DISQUS

jonas · 2 years ago

what happened to the semantic web he spoke about a couple of years back?

Charlie · 2 years ago

What does he do all day?

Samuel Driessen · 2 years ago

Cool! My question(s): I'm really curious if Tim thinks the Semantic Web (Web 3.0 or whatever you want to call it) will be a big improvement in web user experience. Is the semantic web really a fundamental change in approach to the web? The old web was based on logic, the new one will be too. Isn't the semantic web limited because semantics are limited to logic whereas linguistic semantics aren't? Don't we need a whole different computer architecture (non-logic, at least partly) to really be able to have semantic computers and a semantic web?
I hope this is clear...

Dirk · 2 years ago

>>What does he do all day?
agree

Kenny Page · 2 years ago

Firstly,

Is Tim "happy" with how the web has evolved and the how people are utilising the web?

What aspect of the webs development that has not materialised is Tim most disappointed with?

What aspect of the web that is currently evolving excites Tim the most?

When next in Glasgow, Scotland, does he fancy meeting for lunch (I'll buy!)

KP

Jayakumar Hariharan · 2 years ago

Well, living in a part of the world where extremist violence is daily news, I would ask:

How immune is the web from a massive 9/11 type of digital terror strike?

What is being done about it?

Paul Miller · 2 years ago

Robert - that should be an interesting one!

I guess you probably need to delve into the GGG story a little - it's been covered on various levels all over the place, and I have a piece on ZDNet that tries to extract some common threads from the coverage - http://blogs.zdnet.com/web2explorer/?p=419 . Does this expression of interest in the social graph mean a repositioning or change of direction for the Semantic Web effort... or is it a demonstration that the underlying ideas and technologies are flexible enough to do what they *were* doing and meet the needs of next-gen social networks as well?

Something I'm VERY interested in - and try to dig into via the Nodalities blog ( http://blogs.talis.com/nodalities/ ) and an ongoing series of podcasts ( http://www.talis.com/platform/resources/podcast... ) - is the way in which Semantic Web technologies are fit for mainstream business purposes. Podcasts with technologists, business people, venture capitalists and analysts provide some useful perspectives on that... and I'd welcome Tim's view on ways in which the Semantic Web is (finally?) emerging from the laboratory?

Finally (for now - I've got loads more if you want it! ;-) ) my colleague Ian Davis has been postulating about the 'Shadow Web' ( http://iandavis.com/blog/2007/11/is-the-semanti... ) - this idea that the rich web of RDF documents being built by Semantic Web practitioners is actually not very well connected to the mainstream Web that the rest of us navigate around. Is this really a problem and if so what can we do about it?

Paul

Bastian Scherbeck · 2 years ago

Here is a question from Germany. I would love to ask Berners Lee, what are - in his opinion - the most positive and the most negative effects triggered by the invention of the WWW?

Hans Kainz · 2 years ago

What will come after user generated content? Do we have to be afraid of technical limitations (on the web)? Will there be another world changing thing, like web 2.0 was, in the next couple of years? What could this be? What do you think about blogs - are they only a temporarly thing or something with future prospects?

(Sorry for my bad english, as i am from Austria - german).

Vero Pepperrell · 2 years ago

Being from a mobile background, I'd be interested in his views on how mobile fits in with his views of the web.

A unified web (where regular sites degrade gracefully for lower-end devices) or a separate mobile web (ie. with .mobi lighter versions of websites)

Just a thought.

Comic Strip Blogger · 2 years ago

ask him whether this invention of web belongs to Europe because he was working for european organisation CERN when he invented it? (like now where your inventions belong to corporation/company for which you work at given moment) woudl he even invent web without working for CERN? (I doubt)

Hanan Cohen · 2 years ago

What tools do you wish for in your current browser?

Search◊ Engines Web · 2 years ago

* * * * * * * * * * *

1- Besides World Wide Web - what names came in 2nd and 3rd?

2- What was your impression of Gopher - and why did it not succeed?

3- What was your impression of Xanadu - why did it not get developed

4- Who created the terms HyperLink and HyperText?

5- Your take on the Compuserve GIF patent controversy?

6- Your first impression of Marc Andreessen?

7- Why did you not initially embed graphics into Web pages?

8- What was your first ever News Group post?

9- Do you remember your initial newsgroup posts announcing the Web?
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=+%22tim+berne...

10- Your take on the Web 2.0 marketing hype, and why it has caught on?

11- Your impression on Google's place in Web history?

12- Your take on how Internet 2 will change the Web?

13- Who are the 3 public figures you admire most in the world?

14- How would you describe beauty?

15- Do you see the web evolving to virtualize the other 3 senses, rather than just visual and audio?

16- Will there be virtual 3D screen technologies or plug ins in the upcoming decade?

17- Was the concept of TAXI by Tim Bray the forefunner of AJAX?

18- What impact has AJAX (XML/http) had on the Web?


. :-D

searchengines · 2 years ago

___________________________________


1- Besides World Wide Web - what names came in 2nd and 3rd?

2- What was your impression of Gopher - and why did it not succeed?

3- What was your impression of Xanadu - why did it not get developed

4- Who created the terms HyperLink and HyperText?

5- Your take on the Compuserve GIF patent controversy?

6- Your first impression of Marc Andreessen?

7- Why did you not initially embed graphics into Web pages?

8- What was your first ever News Group post?

9- Do you remember your initial newsgroup posts announcing the Web?
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=+%22tim+berne...

10- Your take on the Web 2.0 marketing hype, and why it has caught on?

11- Your impression on Google's place in Web history?

12- Your take on how Internet 2 will change the Web?

13- Who are the 3 public figures you admire most in the world?

14- How would you describe beauty?

15- Do you see the web evolving to virtualize the other 3 senses, rather than just visual and audio?

16- Will there be virtual 3D screen technologies or plug ins in the upcoming decade?

17- Was the concept of TAXI by Tim Bray the forefunner of AJAX?

18- What impact has AJAX (XML/http) had on the Web?

19- :-)

Goyal · 2 years ago

What has been the single largest positive of the Web and how does he see it evolving with Web 2.0 and 3.0?

Sarah · 2 years ago

How do you see the semantic web in relation to .mobi?

What are the key barriers to the semantic web at present and what is needed to break those barriers down?

How do you place semantic web in terms of data, infomation and knowledge flows?

When are we going to meet up and chat? ;) (I'm only 1/2 hr from Southampton)

dbarefoot · 2 years ago

I'd ask him whether he thinks the future of the web will look more and more like 'Second Life' and other virtual worlds. Are we headed toward a Gibsonian view of the web as 3-D rendered space?

dc crowley · 2 years ago

1/. why is rdf so ugly? Why bother with FOAF? when it costs extra time, programming, money... Can you really use it for trust? You can fake FOAF files.
2/. Google, Yahoo and Microsoft should be doing the semantic web... that is when it works. Semantic web top down, microformats is bottom up IMHO.
3/. what do you think of the dataportability.org initiative

Rich · 2 years ago

Just don't ask him "what's next?". I guarantee you he won't have a clue, and he'll struggle for an answer.

Sean Gerety · 2 years ago

Did he ever think the web would become what it is today? What does he do when he's not doing anything tech related?

Thanks,

Sean

Rob Bazinet · 2 years ago

If I had only one question to ask him it would be...is how different is the web as we know it today from his original vision? Ok, part 2 of the question would be based on what he knows and sees now, how does he see the web in 5 or 10 years?

Brian · 2 years ago

So, does the Order of Merit help you pick up chicks? ;-)

Seriously, what do you see as the future of W3C, especially with the development of the peer community. Can any organization keep up with this change process and remain relevant?

Dario Salvelli · 2 years ago

Mmm..there are many questions:

1) What's the next step of Web 2.0? Not only the semantic web.

2) The future (and all the probabily offensive) of Net Neutrality.

3) Overload information and future of blogs and their influence on mainstream and web journal.

Robert Accettura · 2 years ago

Was the internet invented for research or business? Or was that really just a guise for the real intent: porn?

Come on, you have to wonder ;-)

Jim Posner · 2 years ago

What blogs do you read? Do you regularly use a RSS reader?

Jamie Thomson · 2 years ago

The semantic web needs a killer app in order for it to get to the tipping point. Do you foresee that killer app appearing anytime soon?

What is your opinion on walled-garden social networks that don't leverage open standards such as FOAF? SixApart are leveraging them...Facebook, MySpace et al are not. Do you think that's bad for the "open" web?

-JamieT

Anuj Choudhary · 2 years ago

now a few organizations like google, yahoo, microsoft etc. dominate major part of the web 2.0. what if one of them turns their back and goes away, or say google releases my username and password or passes it to annonymous usage? what are the chances of such happening?

Christoph Jaggi · 2 years ago

I would ask mainly two questions:

1. Who were the other key members of the team at CERN that made the web happen and how was the term "world wide web" coined?

2. Which were the two prominent US VCs who were approach for funding back in the very early 90s who declined to invest when Tim Berners-Lee and Robert Caillou were looking to find financing?

Paul Cavanagh · 2 years ago

I suggest that you leave a couple of minutes free at the end of interview and use that unallocated time for him to respond to the question "what questions have I failed to ask that you are keen to answer and that you now want to share with me in the 2 remaining minutes" ?

davidlynch79 · 2 years ago

I would ask him a question with all of these terms in it, xml,opml,rss,keywords,tags,xml-import,xml-export,xml-tree standards vs. tags/keyword search, why the web has a lot of flat feeds but not a lot of trees, ask him if he uses digg, where he think collaborative content building and filtering will go, social feeds. open data silos.

Pete Steege · 2 years ago

Thanks for asking Robert! I'd ask him what he dreamed the www would become, and how that compares with reality.

Mark Scrimshire · 2 years ago

With hindsight what would he have changed, added or removed from his original work in what has become the World Wide Web?

andrew h · 2 years ago

Internet Explorer, Firefox, Flock or Safari? What is his browser of choice.

Alison · 2 years ago

If I'm right - Tim B-L is hard of hearing. What does he think about inaccess, esp to an unsubtitled video he's participating in. :)

What about access standards, with increased media content, and did he perceive that access to the web would go backwards and make more groups excluded; when this probably wasn't his intention?

Tony · 2 years ago

What does he think of Marc Andreessen and Eric Bina?

Deano · 2 years ago

Ditto #35, and what did he think of Mosaic and Netscape?

Mark · 2 years ago

"Who are you?"

Sid · 2 years ago

Your favorite movie and music.

Guy · 2 years ago

RDF seems to be so general that it can be considered for any application. The flip side of this argument is that for any specific application, it is the least powerful solution. That lack of power expresses itself as a more complex representation than is necessary for a specific solution, and an extremely weak inference capability, compared to an application specific model using a representation designed to work with it.

A perfect example is RSS 1.0 versus Atom for blog publishing. The dream of being able to dump anything into an RDF bucket and do any meaningful work seems kind of naive.

It is actually the constraints and simplicity that give a language it power (Think Domain Specific Languages)

Ben S. · 2 years ago

Did he ever think porn would be one of the driving forces for the web? (serious question here)

Seni Thomas · 2 years ago

How will monetization models change with the semantic web. If it creates a personalized web by pulling in data from entities across the web it commoditizes information and web sites lose any design advantages. Also what about advertising??? I hate it as much as the next guy but it subsidizes great content.

I asked this same question at the 2003 W3C conference keynote, but as a scrappy 17 year old he fed me some philosophical jargon. Perhaps you can do better.

TedC · 2 years ago

Does he still believe in a bottom up approach to the Semantic Web, is Top Down the future, or will there be a convergence?

What about data ownership on the web? What are his views on data ownership, control and web advertising? Should people own their web data? Is he pragmatic, pessimistic, or optimistic about the web's future.

Will people or corporations drive technology adoption what is Social Networking's (Web 2.0) place in web history/development?

Jim McQuaid · 2 years ago

I would ask him what he thinks is the relationship between Unitarian-Universalism and his work on the Web.

paul · 2 years ago

Please ask him about RSS, Trackbacks and Tagging.

Paul Miller · 2 years ago

Can I add a vote for Seni Thomas' question? :-)

Michelle B. · 2 years ago

Don't you mean Sir Tim Berners-Lee? :-) I'd ask who inspired him and what drives him. Oh and I'd ask if the internet now is anything like he imagined in the early 90s.

Cheers,
Michelle

Hank Thiele · 2 years ago

What are his feelings on Net Neutrality. What kinds of things does he see impacting this in the future?

mikesax · 2 years ago

Before the web there were Bulletin Board Systems. And they were all islands, because you couldn't easily jump from one to another (you'd have to hang up the phone and dial a different number with your modem). So then the Internet became widely available, and took away those linking barriers, and we got a web of links.

What are the current barriers between islands of knowledge, and how could removing them create the same value that the web created?

Lid · 2 years ago

What amazing people you get to speak with. Well done!

On the off chance there is time:

In his latest post, Tim points out that for future success; for us to be able to access the system, it is critical to consider the graph instead of the Web, given the “zoo of wildly differing devices” available Certainly, no one has it quite right just yet. (Just take a look at the Kindle and its limitations.)

He also points to a list of software that is great right now, but is it enough for the future?

I would like to know what he thinks web designers as well as hardware manufacturers could do better to make the graph easier and more accessible for its users.

Also, if time allows, something that has bothered me for ages: the concept of the Web, a caring, sharing, gentle place - why do so many people sill find it so difficult to understand?

Matt Cutts · 2 years ago

Does Tim believe in the idea of the Semantic Web more, the same, or less than (say) a year or two ago?

Digeratist · 2 years ago

Why do people still say "back-slash" when reading Web addresses?

Ric · 2 years ago

What does he think about OpenAjax - where over 100 top companies are working together to promote an open standard or Open Ajax including Google, Microsoft, IBM, Oracle, Mozilla, Adobe, Dojo, and W3C.

Also could he compare XML to JSON for client side nad possible use on the server.

More importantly, where does he stand on the proposal for new JavaScript 2 / Ecmascript 4 ? There is a lot of heat about this, I would love to hear his input on the matter.

Bruce Curley · 2 years ago

How would he like to be remembered?

Brendan · 2 years ago

What would I ask him?
How are we going to get rid of this?: "http://"

Marcus McConnell · 2 years ago

How would you design a protocol for web applications that would have the reach of HTTP?

john · 2 years ago

in the spirit of Brendan's question, why "double-u-double-u-double-u"?

berners-lee is responsible for at once the most impactful technology invention of our lifetimes ~and the most awkward and wasteful product name in the history of man.

Dhaivat · 2 years ago

How similar do you think you are to Alfred Nobel, he created dynamite and you created WWW, both of which became more of a vice than real use?

Guillermo Castro · 2 years ago

Considering that the majority of traffic on the web is SPAM and P2P illegal file sharing, what would he'd done differently to prevent this?

jason · 2 years ago

Technologies like javascript and dhtml have been around for a long time but there full potential was not realized until the "web 2.0" time.

What is the next big technology that is under-estimated and miss-understood?

julia7 · 2 years ago

I'm curious about his take on web privacy issues - potential for misuse/totalitarian state, etc.

David Jacobs · 2 years ago

The Web, is it everything you hoped for so far? What are your biggest hopes and fears for the web in the next 10 years?

thatedeguy · 2 years ago

Is the web essentially dead? And if so, what's next? If not, why does it seem nearly dead?

Jason Brooks · 2 years ago

How do you see the emergence of a web operating system, and with it the ownership of the web infrastructure by just a few technology conglomerates?

Jeff · 2 years ago

Why are you almost entirely irrelevant to the modern web?

Mike · 2 years ago

What is he working on now?

Aloof Schipperke · 2 years ago

Name five things you would change if you had it to do all over again.

Thriveal · 2 years ago

"Tim-

Why didn't you tell me about this web thing? How's your Mom?"

Thanks, Jason M. Blumer

David RealNameUnknown · 2 years ago

Do we keep tweaking/adding/repurposing the current internet or do we start from scratch and build a new shiny bells and whistles internet? Is the 'wild-west free-for-all nature' of the internet here to stay or will it become ever more regulated/sanitized/controlled?

Christopher Coulter · 2 years ago

38mm or 40mm ball? Where does he stand... :)

Does he actually use OM after his name now? Yet another good reason for 1776.

Johnny Negretti · 2 years ago

How can we get (inspire) IE, Firefox, and Safari to get along?

Christy · 2 years ago

My question would be:
1)What would life be without you inventing the html/ world wide web??
2)Do you like what the internet has become?
3)What are some ways you want to do but cannot to improve your ideas for the web?
4)Who is your celeberity crush?
5)Any questions? or commments?

John · 2 years ago

that is a good one christy....

T B · 2 years ago

Well, too late to ask, but my question would involve what he thinks of XCode versus NeXTSTEP.

Mike Cane · 2 years ago

Had he ever read any of the works of Theodor "Ted" Nelson (only the frikkin guy who envisioned the WWW -- but better, and who created the text "hypertext.") And if so, shouldn't he *mention* that damned genius a few times?!

Motiur Muhith · 2 years ago

I would want to know how he invented the web. It's weird, really, because the internet is made of many different servers from many different places. How can the internet possibly be invented? You would have to create one big server or several servers. Where exactly is the internet located?

Grace · 1 year ago

How did the web impact your life