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Clay Shirky unfortunately has no idea what he's talking about. You can interpret a CSV file as a set of syllogisms, too, if you want. RDF is data, just like CSV, except the shape is different. CSV is good for some things. RDF is good for other things.

RDF is a fantastic way to aggregate data from many different sources, for example. CSV sucks at that.

The problem is that RDF has been marketed so poorly, which has totally confused people like Shirky.

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Can you point to an example or two where RDF is a "fantastic way to aggregate data..."? My sense is that things like microformats, which are more flexible and narrowly defined than RDF, are useful for this, too, but it hardly constitutes a "semantic web". It's just obvious connections between things. Something like a custom type of hyperlink is all. Not that this "all" is bad, it's just not going to revolutionize the world or anything more than the existing web already has.

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