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Pull: The Power of the Semantic Web to Transform Your Business
The first clear guide to the Semantic Web and its upcoming impact on the business world Imagine that, in 1992, someone handed you a book about the future of something called the World Wide Web. This book claimed that through a piece of software called a "browser", which accesses "web sites", the world economy and our daily lives would change forever. Would you have believed even 10 percent of that book? Did you take advantage of the first Internet wave and get ahead of the curve? Pull is the blueprint to the next disruptive wave. Some call it Web 3.0; others call it the semantic web. It's a fundamental transition from pushing information to pulling, using a new way of thinking and collaborating online. Using the principles of this book, you will slash 5-20 percent off your bottom line, make your customers happier, accelerate your industry, and prepare your company for the twenty-first century. It isn't going to be easy, and you don't have any choice. By 2015, your company will be more agile and your processes more flexible than you ever thought possible. The semantic web leads to possibilities straight from science fiction, such as buildings that can order their own supplies, eliminating the IRS, and lawyers finally making sense. But it also leads to major changes in every field, from shipping and retail distribution to health care and financial reporting. Through clear examples, case studies, principles, and scenarios, business strategist David Siegel takes you on a tour of this new world. You'll -Which industries are already ahead. -Which industries are already dead. -How to make the power shift from pushing to pulling information. -How software, hardware, media, and marketing will all change. -How to plan your own strategy for embracing the semantic web. We are at the beginning of a new technology curve that will affect all areas of business. Right now, you have a choice. You can decide to start preparing for the exciting opportunities that lay ahead or you can leave this book on the shelf and get left in the dust like last time.
289 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2009
28 people are currently reading
108 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
August 30, 2010
Disclosure: I am a computer scientist, and semantic web concepts are nothing new to me. They began to emerge in academia more than a decade ago, but have yet to gain wide-scale adoption for reasons I will not go into here. It was very clear within the first few chapters that my own idyllic vision of the semantic future departs somewhat from Siegel's predictions. My review is thus significantly skewed.
In terms of visioneering, this is a 5-star presentation. In "Pull: The Power of the Semantic Web to Transform Your Business", Siegel presents what I call a "marketers vision" of the semantic web. He is able to cover a breadth of current industries with in-depth ideas of how efficiencies could be introduced by large-scale systemic semantic improvements. The provided user stories (that fill the majority of the book) are most definitely quote worthy, and will hopefully spur all industries to take progressive action towards open data and standards. I would encourage all non-technical business decision makers unfamiliar with the principles of the semantic web to start with Pull for a solid value proposition.
My biggest disappointment with Pull is that the arguments essentially end with the use cases. Siegel addresses few to none of the actual reasons that have prevented massive forward progress from private industries. In particular, issues such as transitive trust, caching coherency, service availability, and many more an issue are rarely if ever even mentioned, which is unfortunate since some of them are Achilles' heels. Additionally, Service Oriented Architecture (SOA)--a style that *has* achieved notable industry adoption--arguably overlaps in many ways with the semantic web in both technology and business value. Yet, this was not even mentioned.
Understanding the benefits--from a computer science perspective--is actually the *easy* part. We don't need another paper explaining this. What we *do* need are many more reproducible concrete strategies and case studies documenting successful enterprise migrations from massive, proprietary infrastructures to scalable, open, semantically queryable ones.
I was also disappointed by teh too frequent occurrence of awkward phrasings giving me the impression that Siegel may not quite be down with the details of how current web systems work under the covers: even those implementing semantic standards. (And some statements are in direct contradiction of principles popularized by the web 2.0 movement.) For example, here are a few awkward examples that may raise an eyebrow from those in the industry:
"It doesn’t take a computer scientist to see that there won’t be any more Apple or Windows operating systems, at least for end users. These dinosaurs will go extinct as the world of real-time access and streaming to cheap, or even free, displays takes their place. I expect it will be a ten-year process."
"Apply the semantic web acid test: .... Is it on the web, as opposed to in a database?"
"Scrub your data...Bring in consultants to find inaccuracies and insist on a Six Sigma approach to data integrity."
There are too many holes to mention, but the conclusion is that Pull delivers 5-star quality for packaging of potential benefits, but 1-star for execution depth of any meaningful detail. Based on the title of the book I fully expected both.
In terms of visioneering, this is a 5-star presentation. In "Pull: The Power of the Semantic Web to Transform Your Business", Siegel presents what I call a "marketers vision" of the semantic web. He is able to cover a breadth of current industries with in-depth ideas of how efficiencies could be introduced by large-scale systemic semantic improvements. The provided user stories (that fill the majority of the book) are most definitely quote worthy, and will hopefully spur all industries to take progressive action towards open data and standards. I would encourage all non-technical business decision makers unfamiliar with the principles of the semantic web to start with Pull for a solid value proposition.
My biggest disappointment with Pull is that the arguments essentially end with the use cases. Siegel addresses few to none of the actual reasons that have prevented massive forward progress from private industries. In particular, issues such as transitive trust, caching coherency, service availability, and many more an issue are rarely if ever even mentioned, which is unfortunate since some of them are Achilles' heels. Additionally, Service Oriented Architecture (SOA)--a style that *has* achieved notable industry adoption--arguably overlaps in many ways with the semantic web in both technology and business value. Yet, this was not even mentioned.
Understanding the benefits--from a computer science perspective--is actually the *easy* part. We don't need another paper explaining this. What we *do* need are many more reproducible concrete strategies and case studies documenting successful enterprise migrations from massive, proprietary infrastructures to scalable, open, semantically queryable ones.
I was also disappointed by teh too frequent occurrence of awkward phrasings giving me the impression that Siegel may not quite be down with the details of how current web systems work under the covers: even those implementing semantic standards. (And some statements are in direct contradiction of principles popularized by the web 2.0 movement.) For example, here are a few awkward examples that may raise an eyebrow from those in the industry:
"It doesn’t take a computer scientist to see that there won’t be any more Apple or Windows operating systems, at least for end users. These dinosaurs will go extinct as the world of real-time access and streaming to cheap, or even free, displays takes their place. I expect it will be a ten-year process."
"Apply the semantic web acid test: .... Is it on the web, as opposed to in a database?"
"Scrub your data...Bring in consultants to find inaccuracies and insist on a Six Sigma approach to data integrity."
There are too many holes to mention, but the conclusion is that Pull delivers 5-star quality for packaging of potential benefits, but 1-star for execution depth of any meaningful detail. Based on the title of the book I fully expected both.
December 3, 2014
I consider myself a dancer of the world - allowing my aspiration to shift at every moment yet always seeking structures for workability.
Pull is the kind of book that makes you realize one is a fluid set of outcomes and that everything around you has the opportunity to align with exactly where you are right now and fulfill on exactly what you want.
The book explains the semantic web in "plain English" - not technical jargon many of you may have seen in other works (which to a technologist such as myself is a blessing in disguise!) David successfully describes & shares a new world with plenty of real, live examples out there and a variety of scenarios from different facets of life - enough that you'll be moved and relate to at least one!
This is my new bible and compass for technologies we aspire to build together on the web. The book is so especially validating of many of my own personal life experiments and provides a sense of peace there are so many like-minded people building such a future together!
So take action - read the book & you may never see everyday life thru the same lenses ever again and join the excitement of what's to come!
Pull is the kind of book that makes you realize one is a fluid set of outcomes and that everything around you has the opportunity to align with exactly where you are right now and fulfill on exactly what you want.
The book explains the semantic web in "plain English" - not technical jargon many of you may have seen in other works (which to a technologist such as myself is a blessing in disguise!) David successfully describes & shares a new world with plenty of real, live examples out there and a variety of scenarios from different facets of life - enough that you'll be moved and relate to at least one!
This is my new bible and compass for technologies we aspire to build together on the web. The book is so especially validating of many of my own personal life experiments and provides a sense of peace there are so many like-minded people building such a future together!
So take action - read the book & you may never see everyday life thru the same lenses ever again and join the excitement of what's to come!
May 26, 2010
Best explanation of why the semantic web matters and why it will change our lives I've read.
May 1, 2010
Great book discussing the vision of the semantic web. The focus of this book is NOT on the technology of semantic web (hardly even touches W3C stack). The focus is on the idea of open data standards and how standardizing metadata communication will change the Internet as we know it. Great overviews of XBRL and other standardization efforts, as well as a ton of ideas for entrepreneurs. Highly recommend to IT managers as well as developers looking to understand some of the hype around the "semantic web".
April 13, 2012
This is a great book. I think it's appropriate for anyone with some connection with technology.
The ideas are very easy to grasp. You can even say that some of them are obvious. But, the way the author explains the idea of Semantic Web makes the line between scifi and reality seem thinner.
He explains in much details many steps on were and how the web can be more smart and help everyday life. E-commerce, law, real state, medicine and many other areas are very well exploited in a very simple language.
Great work.
The ideas are very easy to grasp. You can even say that some of them are obvious. But, the way the author explains the idea of Semantic Web makes the line between scifi and reality seem thinner.
He explains in much details many steps on were and how the web can be more smart and help everyday life. E-commerce, law, real state, medicine and many other areas are very well exploited in a very simple language.
Great work.
August 14, 2012
Great vision for the use of semantic technologies in business and public sector, a vision that is quite possibly can happen really soon. I've read a few books on semantic tech, but they were all either too technical or too academic,with no valuable, useful real-life applications. This books has real examples with projections for future use of the technology and how to adapt to what is coming. This book is highly recommended!
November 12, 2013
Using this semantic web requires making a fundamental transition from pushing information to pulling, thinking and collaborating in a different fashion from Web 1.0 and 2.0.
Customers pull all info toward them about products and services, so that advice is more useful and reusable.
The End of Push--what a concept!
Customers pull all info toward them about products and services, so that advice is more useful and reusable.
The End of Push--what a concept!
August 6, 2011
Lots of great examples and ideas for using Ontologies for applications involving Business Intelligence and sensor-based data. The goal is to create a semantic-focused Internet of Things. A great book by an ex-neighbor of mine.
May 16, 2010
The bible of the Semantic Web and a good introduction to VRM
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August 28, 2010This books describes how the Semantic Web will change the world in the near future. Very exciting :)
November 7, 2011
This book reads like a sci-fi novel, but happens to be really practical at the same time. I'm not sure if I agree with all of the predictions made by Siegel, but I am enjoying the book.
November 6, 2010
Great ideas, but the author glosses over or simply ignores the larger social and economic consequences of the world he envisions.
February 8, 2011
Good introduction to semantic web, but a little too shallow.
November 23, 2011
Good ideas, but about 100 pages too long.
Also it's much more of an aggregation of thoughts as opposed to anything new or groundbreaking.
Also it's much more of an aggregation of thoughts as opposed to anything new or groundbreaking.
March 13, 2013
Very interesting and intriguing!
July 30, 2013
Siegel does his usual exhaustive and imaginative deep dive into "the next big thing." Definitely a good OK intro to semantic web and Internet of things.
March 10, 2014
Waste of paper
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November 25, 2016mejne3k
Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews