CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- If you want to learn about Web standards, you can do a lot worse than to seek the advice of the World Wide Web Consortium, or W3C. Ralph Swick, the group's technology and society domain leader, addressed the 2008 FIATECH Member's Meeting earlier this week, letting FIATECH's member EPC firms, facility owners, and equipment and software vendors know what the W3C is up to these days and what it means for their capital projects.
Swick said a lot of the W3C's work focuses on the idea that the Internet has evolved from a web of documents to a web of data. Here, then, we see the evolution from Web 2.0-- collaboration through blogs, social networking sites and the like -- to Web 3.0, or the "semantic Web," where data sets are linked and third parties have the ability to recognize relationships among those data sets. Web 3.0 is also poised to be ubiquitous, accessible not just from mobile devices but from everyday electronic objects, Swick said.
"Sounds cool," you are probably saying, "but what does it all mean?" Several things, in fact.
As the mobile Web expands, the same information that project managers, engineers and other stakeholders are used to seeing on computer screens should be available on mobile devices -- provided that the mobile Web initiative progresses to the point that software developers can use a single code base for desktop- and device-based browsers. Just think of the field management possibilities.
The semantic Web should make it a lot easier to share information -- project plans, for example, or construction schedules -- with large groups of stakeholders. Think of how easily one can post a link, photo or video for all his or her Facebook friends to see. Shouldn't it be as easy to collaborate for business as for pleasure?
The ubiquitous Web, which stands to connects everyday objects to the Internet, has quite a bit of potential. Wouldn't it be nice to monitor your plant's temperature gauges from your desk, away from the heat? And how easy would material gathering be if you could combine RFID and GPS?
These are certainly exciting prospects. Clearly, though, it will take time for such technologies to first emerge and then be refined to the point that they can be used both effectively and on a scale that will benefit SMBs.
In the meantime, EPC firms, owners and vendors need to figure out what they need and how they can get it. To that end the W3C is hosting a workshop on the semantic Web in the energy industry later this year. The workshop is initially focusing on the oil and gas industries but will expand its reach in later phases. That which emerges from this workshop will be watched with much interest.