There's been a lot of talk recently about the semantic web, the successor--or so we're promised--to the current web.

But what exactly *is* the semantic web, and how does it link to digital humanities?

If you're new to the concept, there's a good introduction to the semantic web and the current state of the art in The Economist:

The semantic web (or “web 3.0”, as some people are trying to re-brand it), is the name given to the idea that the pages of the world wide web ought to carry more than just the meaning they are intended to convey to the human reader. They should also, the thinking goes, be tagged and flagged in ways that machines can make semantic sense of, as people make semantic sense of language. That way, machines could make instant connections that would take serious amounts of time for people to see, or might even elude them altogether.