The "semantic web" as a theory has been around for ages and I remember working with people, a decade ago, who were investigating how to build a semantic web. The semantic web, a term coined by Sir Tim Berners-lee, is a vision that would allow automated agents and software to access the Web intelligently, via machine-readable metadata embedded within content. There are a number of standards, tools, methodologies and technologies around that have been created to aid in the development of a semantic web, yet it is still unrealised and alludes the world. There are a number of reasons for this including the physical size of the web, the vastness of knowledge and how to categorise it all into suitable classes, and the completeness, consistency and standardisation of information, to name just a few issues to deal with. I imagine some even question whether it is truly possible due to the sheer scale and requirements involved. Probably the biggest impact of working towards a s...