Semantics in Social Networks 

It’s not just about Facebook and LinkedIn, but a multitude of information-sharing networks

Semantic technologies offer a unique set of opportunities to social networks.  And the notion of "network" analysis increasingly goes beyond the obvious consumer-level services like Facebook, to incorporate a variety of explicit and implicit relationships.

Sessions at the SemTech Conference will discuss how these networks are being measured and analyzed with semantics. What are the new, socially-specific ontologies and vocabularies are under development to better connect and understand social networks?What are the new tools and services that leverage social network analysis to enable innovative new products.

Social networking topics include:

• Semantics tools for Twitter and Facebook
• Search in social nets
• Social ontologies
• Collaboration models 
• Professional communities
• Relationship finders
• Visualization and graphical tools
• Linked data in social nets
• Information exchanges 
• Sentiment analysis
• Crowdsourcing
• Social Mobile apps

Featured Session:
The Social Fabric of Semantics

Jamie Taylor, Minister of Information
Metaweb Technologies, Inc.

Semantics develop when a community uses a common vocabulary to describe the things that matter to them.  This talk examines how semantic vocabularies develop, how they are used, how they evolve and what makes a semantic community sustainable.

The talk will dissect both formal and informal communities; from the emergent semantics of Twitter and the powerful, lightweight semantics of Wikipedia to the more formal semantics of Freebase schema. These communities represent a diversity of members, continuous evolution and a wide spectrum of use. This talk will discuss how these factors contribute to the sustainability of the community and the longevity of their semantic practice. The implications for the growth of other semantic communities and the larger Semantic Web will be discussed.