Semantic HTML: A Stepping Stone From the GUI Web to the Semantic Web

Another example of web serendipity. I have a Google Alert set for the search term ["semantic web" microformats], which today led me to Davyd's blog post, which had this comment from loic: "microformats are evil. you should use RDFA!" A quick search for RDFA using Google and viola(!)--I discover a couple of new approaches (besides the groundbreaking microformats) to what is currently being referred  to as Semantic HTML.

Benjamin Nowak has a good list of the current approaches to Semantic HTML: microformats, Structured Blogging, RDFa (the "a" stands for "attributes"), and eRDF (the "e" stands for "embedded").

What I find most promising is the general consensus that the best approach to moving from the "GUI Web" to the "Semantic Web" is to provide a simple stepping stone for semantically annotating the existing "GUI HTML"; thereby transforming it into "Semantic HTML". And a little healthy competition among the various approaches should make the converged solution all the better.

Now all we have to do is to make sure the developers being enticed by GUI-centric RIA approaches like Ajax, XAML, Flash/Flex, etc., don't forget to ensure that their slick GUI interfaces are not only user accessible, but semantically accessible.

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