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Linking Open Data cloud (Image via Wikipedia)

Until recently Open Data didn’t ring any bells for me, but joining Zemanta changed everything. From this september Zemanta is a partner in LOD2 consortium (http://lod2.eu), and now I have the opportunity to work along a bunch of cool people doing cool stuff to Open Data in the world of Semantic Web, where, according to Tim Berners-Lee, it’s not all about putting data on the web, but also about linking it and making it machine readable so we can actually make something useful with it, like e.g. find other, related, data?

Nowadays it’s quite easy to find bits and pieces of freely available data. The only problems is, these data are just this – more or less meaningful bits and pieces, until you connect them with other data. It’s almost like baking a cake: until you mix and combine all the ingredients and bake the darn thing, you don’t have one. If data is ingredients, information or knowledge from linked data is the cake.

Some institutions, companies and governments already grasped the idea of creating, sharing and linking data (e.g. Data.gov, Freebase, DBPedia, Infochimps), while others still need some encouragement – and this is what EU project Creating Knowledge out of Interlinked Data (LOD2) is all about. LOD2 is building on results of Linking Open Data (LOD) project, hence the sequel (in case you wondered).
One of the main goals of the LOD2 project is to provide the tools needed in the life-cycle of Linked data from extraction, authoring and enrichment, interlinking, to visualization and… sharing.

Few days ago LOD2 consortium announced the first release of the LOD2 Stack of tools (available at http://stack.lod2.eu). The official launch is on November 29, 2011. If you want to build the Future Web (or is it the future of Web?) with us, step in, grab a tool, link some data and contribute. If you are a professional working at government or industry, even better. Spread the word, join the Semantic Web crew, provide Open  Data.

If this seems too PR-ish for you, the least you can do is to register for free LOD2 Stack webinar.  LOD2 team prepared an one-hour webinar where LOD2 stack will be presented and demonstrated. It starts on Tuesday, November 29, 2011 at 04.00pm CET and it is a part of LOD2 webinar series. Once more: it’s free.

Further information and registration at http://lod2.eventbrite.com/ .

Related articles

• Linking Open Data toolkit (lespetitescases.net)
• W3C Library Linked Data Reports (ivan-herman.name)
• Of Open Data Startups and Open Businesses (opendotdotdot.blogspot.com)
• Report on the International Linked Open Data for Libraries, Archive… (slideshare.net)