Linked Open Data (LOD) is a concept that many believe they understand. Take yourself to most any conference that has a connection with data, or the web, or the Internet at the moment, and it will not belong before you see a slide of the Linked Open Data cloud diagram, or of Sir Tim imploring us to give him our raw data now, or if you are very lucky a
shot of him doing his imploring whilst stood in front of a shot of the LOD cloud. - Simple really, just publish your data as Linked Open Data and all will be wonderful as we move towards the sunlit Semantic Web uplands. Unfortunately life is never that simple – LOD is not a single identifiable thing. As Paul Walk eloquently puts it:
- data can be open, while not being linked
- data can be linked, while not being open
- data which is both open and linked is increasingly viable
- the Semantic Web can only function with data which is both open and linked
via blogs.talis.com
