What Happened To The Semantic Web?

The idea of the Semantic Web has surfaced in the literature over 20 years ago, and this area has been a major focus of academic research and standardisation for almost as long. In this talk, we look back at the history of the Semantic Web. We discuss what the original aspirations of its creators were, and what has been achieved in practice in these two decades. We also seek to find where the Semantic Web has failed and succeeded, illustrated by usage in web search, e-commerce and online media. Further, we will attempt to understand whether it makes sense to pursue at least some of these ideas in a different age, with new opportunities brought about by recent developments in Big Data, cloud computing, and Deep Learning.