Despite its explosive growth over the last decade, the Web remains essentially a tool to allow humans to access information. This article discusses the next generation of the Web, dubbed the 'Semantic Web', which will extend the Web's capability through the increased availability of machine-processable information. These machine-processable descriptions in turn allow more intelligent software systems to be written, automating the analysis and exploitation of Web-based information. The article covers the key technology building blocks of the Semantic Web, namely the languages XML and RDF, and the notion of ontologies. It then proceeds to discuss the applications of this technology in the key functional area of eBusiness, through the use of Semantic Web Services.
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