The semantic Web has long been heralded as the future of the Web. Proponents have said that Web experiences will some day become more meaningful and relevant based on the AI-esque computational power of natural-language processing (NLP) and structured data that is understandable by machines for interpretation. However, with the rise of the social Web, we see that what truly makes our online experiences meaningful is not necessarily the Web's ability to approximate human language or to return search results with syntactical exactness. The value of the semantic Web will take time because the intelligent personal agents that are able to process this structured data still have a long way to go before becoming fully actualized. Sponsor This guest post was written by Alisa Leonard-Hansen. Rather, meaningful and relevant experiences now are born out of the context of our identities and social graph: the pragmatics, or contextual meaning, of our online identities. My Web experience becomes more meaningful and relevant to me when it is layered with contextual social data based on my identity. This is the pragmatic Web. We need to better understand our identity as it begins to define our experience of the Web and the networked-enabled world we inhabit. Our online identity will increasingly be defined by three "pillars": who I say I am, what I do and say, and who I connect to (and who connects to me). To clarify, our online identities are comprised primarily of three specific kinds of data: Explicit or prescriptive data (i.e. the data that I input about myself: name, age, occupation, etc.); Activity or behavioral data (i.e. what I do and say online); Relationship data (i.e. my social graph and what my connections say about me). If we consider the power of this pragmatic Web (a highly relevant and individualized Web experience based on the ubiquity of our identity data), we find that it not only impacts individual user experience, but that it opens up entirely new opportunities for business online. The future is not "business as usual." Business models will be based on what Elias Bizannes of the Data Portability Project calls the "information value network-economic value," derived from services that focus on activities with comparative advantage and that leverage free access to data. Consider this: as media companies scramble to identify new and innovative ways to advertise to the sea of nameless, pixeled users who graze through their content each day, a rich supply of highly valuable identity data lies just beneath the surface, left unmeasured and unmonetized. Facebook is nothing more than perhaps the largest single database of this kind of online identity data: explicit, activity and relationship data. With the development of Facebook Connect, which allows for the "open" exchange of Facebook user data between Facebook and third parties, Facebook could conceivably (and will) create an Facebook Connect ad network (read: data exchange), supplied by the valuable and highly targetable user identity data that is currently siloed on Facebook's servers. This identity data within Facebook is what makes the activity in "social media" so valuable. But the centralization of identity data on one or two major networks (such as Facebook, Twitter and MySpace) won't realize the vision of the pragmatic Web. So, how will the pragmatic Web come to be? How do we realize the power of a dynamic Web that is based on our identities? We do so by empowering individuals to access and control their identity across any site or service, through standards that enable data portability and open Web inter-operability. The resulting vision is that of a highly personalized, dynamic, relevant and remixable Web experience, yielding greater access to information through discovery, communication and collaboration. For enterprise, this could mean the rise of innovative new business models, based on data-driven value exchange. One final note on identity data as it relates to enterprise. As Bizannes points out, the value of this kind of identity data rests on the key factors of time and timeliness. Essentially, identity data is valuable only if it is recent. Facebook wouldn't be able to sell your (permissions-enabled) data to advertisers if it used your explicit data from a year ago rather than from today. So, Bizannes argues that real-time "access" to someone's identity matters most, and it's no longer about data "capture." Thus, as new business models arise out of monetizing permissions-enabled identity data, the value of the business models will depend on these entities having real-time access to the data. Guest author: Alisa Leonard-Hansen is a digital strategist and Social Media Evangelist at iCrossing , a leading global digital agency. She is also the Communications Chair for the Data Portability Project and blogs about the social Web on her blog, TheWebisSocial.com . Follow her on Twitter @alisamleo . Discuss

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The Future Is All About Context: The Pragmatic Web

Our own Marshall Kirkpatrick's dreaded brain chip for controlling computers and mobile devices may be closer than even he suspected. Intel researchers in Pittsburgh told journalists today that brain implants are harnessing human brain waves to surf the Internet, manipulate documents, and much more. And just as we told you two years ago, the lucky recipients of these implants will be willing volunteers, not government-controlled guinea pigs. Some of us are now researching cheap flights to Pittsburgh. Sponsor Just think of how far we've come since the early days of portable tech. "If you told people 20 years ago that they would be carrying computers all the time," said Intel research VP Andrew Chien, "they would have said, 'I don't want that. I don't need that.' Now you can't get them to stop." Indeed, mobility, transparency, and accessibility are all the terms of the hour; and their advocates are popular laureates. The forefront of the user interface has revolved around concepts such as intuition, organics, and biology. Gesture technology is removing one barrier that lies between human-to-machine communication; think about that the next time you twirl your iPhone around like an Etch-A-Sketch. Isn't removing the need for physical contact the next rational step? Chien tells us that, although there are many challenges yet to solve, the day of brain-controlled computing isn't so far off. Dean Pomerleau works for Intel on matters of cognitive neuroscience, machine learning, computer vision, robotics, man-machine interfaces, brain processing of semantic information, and various brain-scanning technologies, such as fMRI, MEG, EEG and ECoG. He and his cohorts are solving the mechanisms of brain waves. While there's no doubt the use cases are fascinating, Pomerleau also brushes off user concerns about implants, saying, "Eventually people may be willing to be more committed... to brain implants. Imagine being able to surf the Web with the power of your thoughts." This is the precise line of thinking that Kirkpatrick debates so heatedly - perhaps as much now as he did in his editorial almost two years ago. Are concerns around user privacy abated since then? Hardly, with Facebook and location-based-tech developers struggling to maintain balance for their users and constant struggles and inquisitions over corporate storage of user data. Has the issue of information overload lessened? If it had, would so many startups be staking their claim on the issue of firehose filtration? And is mobile tech obsolete enough to require even more portable access to the apps we love and - dare I say it? - need? Are end users ready for brain implants? You tell us. Discuss

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The Brain Chip Cometh, & It Cometh from Intel

Sysomos just launched the next version of Heartbeat, the company's social media monitoring tool. Highlights of Heartbeat 2.0 include a redesigned user interface and Facebook integration. Sysomos' customers can now monitor public conversations on Facebook and manage their Facebook Pages right from within Heartbeat. The Facebook integration tracks user activity, top keywords and top fans on Facebook pages. Sponsor Focus on Social Media Workflow Heartbeat does not restrict the number of users per account. This is a good thing, given that one of Heartbeat's best features is its ability to assign tasks and follow-ups to other team members. Sysomos calls this the 'engagement stream' and while Heartbeat's ability to monitor social media streams is impressive, most of the workflow in an enterprise setting happens through these engagement streams. Facebook Integration As Sysomos's Nilesh Bansal told us earlier today, the company's customers really wanted to manage their Facebook accounts through Heartbeat. Even though it takes a bit to set up - and even though Facebook still doesn't make a lot of its data public - the integration actually turns out to be quite interesting and gives users a chance to manage their social media accounts in one place. The Facebook integration shows a sentiment meter, as well as a tree graph with the most often used keywords in these postings. Even though Facebook doesn't offer a lot of public data yet, Bansal told us that the company tries to use whatever data it can get. It is important to note that Heartbeat is not just a Twitter and Facebook tool. Sysomos also tracks blogs and forum postings. One of the most interesting aspects of Heartbeat is that it can find the most influential bloggers and Twitter users that write about your company (or competitors). Heartbeat also offers sentiment analysis and does a surprisingly good job at keeping spam tweets and blogs out of its index. MAP: Social Media Analytics Sysomos also offers MAP , the company's social media analytics tool. While Hearbeat is geared towards end-users in the enterprise, MAP is a fully-featured analytics tool. With this power, however, also comes a steep learning curve. MAP also doesn't feature any of Heartbeat's social media workflow features. We took a close look at MAP in an earlier review . Sysomos also offers a very helpful chart that compares the features of MAP and Heartbeat. Pricing With an entry-level price of $500 per month, Heartbeat is clearly not a consumer product. Most of Sysomos' customers buy packages that also include access to MAP and the company creates custom quotes for these customers. We have heard, however, that Sysomos plans to offer a free or less costly product for small businesses and consumers in the future. Discuss

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Sysomos Launches Heartbeat 2.0: Enterprise-Grade Social Media Monitoring