I took a look at Nova Spivak’s Twine demo this week. One of those ouch! moments when you realize that the thing you’ve been trying to build on and off for a couple years just got done better, slicker and faster. I’ve still got a few things I’d do differently – I’d focus more on annotating each URL and using that as a concept address for notes, and provide a simple way for webmasters to get a feed of all the comments users make about their pages. But the basic idea of a bookmarklet that lets you add URL’s as you surf and organize them for yourself and others as you go – that is all in there.

So, thinking that instead of playing around by myself I ought to be looking for bigger opportunities to do semweb stuff with a team, I updated my old CCR registration and ran a search for the word ‘semantic’  at http://FedBizOpps.gov.  A search of all federal contracting opportunities from the last 30 days – from spare tires to surveillance equipment – resulted in exactly one match: something called  The Software Systems Stockroom.

This is an Air Force solicitation, but for something that sounds promising for general use: “White papers are being solicited that propose a foundational reference architecture for an open framework environment that enables researchers to develop, analyze, and classify their software components and designs.”  It also refers to “technology transition and transfer” in a way that makes me think they plan for this beast to be of general use.  The word ‘semantic’ appears in reference to the architecture for the user interface.

 I wonder why more semantic web stuff is not showing up?  From our end, it seems to me that this is the year semantic web is happening in the enterprise, and I keep hearing that it is used in the intelligence community.  But I can’t find it coming out of the feds, at least in this short search.  Last time a few months ago I searched the same site for ‘RDF’ and found a request for quote for ‘Runway Deicing Fluid’.  Maybe the GSA needs a bit of semantics in their search interface.