So we've finally updated the RDFWeb Web site. Lots of things missing, still, but this is the first revamp of the site since the site, prototypes and rdfweb-dev mailing list went public in June 2000.
The purpose of this site was always to provide interesting ideas, tools and data for RDF developers, while also presenting ideas, projects and services of interest to a more general audience. In the last year or so, we've spent less time on the project than we'd have liked; in particular, the old Web site sucked.
So now we're launching a prettier version of the RDFWeb vapourware site. We're still missing out on 'Getting started HOWTOs', FAQs, template FOAF documents etc., but we do at least now have a pretty background graphic. We also have the beginnings of a distinction between "RDFWeb for developers" (people from the RDF, XML and Web tech community) and "RDFWeb for the real world", ie. practical, mischievous and infeasible projects that might just be more interesting than the underlying technology. The developers and projects links in the toolbar may eventually live up to this ambition.
Right now, RDFWeb is very definitely a 'tech' project. It has a relatively small audience (developers, standards geeks and friends) and it takes a lot of background knowledge for granted. But some of the things we've prototyped in the last year or so, such as the friend of a friend stuff and the co-depiction image metadata experiment... these seem to have potential. The new site, as it evolves, will try to make these things more accessible to a wider audience.
Time will tell. It seems smarter to publish this skeletal site as-is rather than wait until everything's finished. I want to publish the new co-depiction writeup anyway, so may as well flip the switch on the whole thing...
Dan, Feb 2002.