Semantic? I don’t actually understand this term. I’m sorry for being dumb.

Wikipedia define it as:

In the main, semantics (from the Greek semantikos, or “significant meaning,” derived from sema, sign) is the study of meaning, in some sense of that term. It should not be confused with the general semantics of Alfred Korzybski, a somewhat different discipline. Semantics is often opposed to syntax, in which case the former pertains to what something means while the latter pertains to the formal structure/patterns in which something is expressed (for example written or spoken).

The definition of ComputerWorld is more clearer and it says:

“Of or pertaining to meaning, [especially] in language,” from semainein, which is “to signify or mean.” During the past few years, there has been much talk about the emergence of a “semantic Web,” a concept championed by none other than Tim Berners-Lee. Semantic Web applications are intelligent systems where computers can effectively understand the meaning of the information transmitted, unlike HTML-based systems that are mostly concerned with how information is displayed. …

So, how did I find this term?

Phill Midwinter wrote an article that was published at the Read/WriteWeb which deal on Google Search Engine whether it’s a semantic one or not. He even explained what semantic means by relating it to cats and dogs in the household.

Semantics as it relates to our topic, search engines, actually covers a few closely related fields. In this instance what we are looking at deciphering (as a basic example) is whether a computer can discern if there is a link between two words, such as cat and dog. You and I both know that cats and dogs are common household pets, and can be categorized as such. The human brain seems to comprehend this easily, but for a computer it is a much more complex task and one I won’t go into here – because it would most likely bore you.

After analyzing, he made the conclussion that:

Google is using semantic technology, but is not yet a fully fledged semantic search engine. It does not use NLP (Natural Language Processing), but this is not a barrier to producing some truly web changing technology with a bit of thought and originality. NLP may well be (I hate myself for writing this) web 4.0 and semantics is web 3.0 – they are in fact different enough to be classified as such in my eyes and the technology Hakia is developing is certainly markedly distinct from Google’s semantic efforts.

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