Easing Participation in the Semantic Web

Although a promising idea, the Semantic Web currently seems to have a problem duplicating the success story of its predecessor, the World Wide Web. The number of people actively participating in the Semantic Web has been very limited until now, because people can't see the bene ts originating from the extra e ort they invest into semantically rich web pages. Unfortunately, this advantage is barely visible at all until a critical mass of RDF-annotated pages is available on the net, thus making is diÆcult to recruit new participants for the Semantic Web. The article tries to break this vicious circle by showing that the use of appropriate tools may both ease participation in the semantic web and provide a number of additional advantages not directly related to the Semantic Web. The latter, in particular, may convince a larger number of people to participate, and thus bring the Semantic Web nearer its critical mass.