All You Need To Know About Linked Data

One of the major challenges the world today is finding difficult to address is the issue of linked data. Linked data is a technology that is built on the web to use semantic queries to connect and link content from all over the internet together. As smart and endless as the internet is, getting the search engines to understand strings of characters has been a problem developers have been trying to solve before the invention of linked data.
Most web search engines make use of hyperlinks to identify and rank the relevance of content on the internet. This method has been effective over the years, but going forward, it will no longer be feasible as regards to the hunger for more accurate content. 

The importance of linked data cannot be over-emphasized in the development of a faster and more sustainable internet for the future. Linked data basically involves creating a bridge by which contents on the internet can find each other through sharing similar characters and without the use of hyperlinks.

In this article showing tools for linked data, other important things are imperative to enlighten you will need to know about the technology.

Difference Between Linked Data And Open Data

Linked data and open data have been used interchangeably over the years, which is wrong. Open data is a type of data accessible to everyone but limited in the amount and quality of data a person can access. This type of data is stored in a database and is not connected to other sources. In open data, you don’t have the liability to integrate your already existing data with others. With linked data, you can enjoy the privileges of open data and more. Here, you get access to the databases of other people and integrate them with yours to improve the quality of your database.

Components Of Linked Data

Uniform Resource Identifier(URI): This is one of the most important components of linked data. A URI is an identification system that helps the linked data  give identity to strings of characters on the web. It ensures that every character is grouped in a particular dataset for better and proper linkage with the contents of similar characters.

HTTP: After the URI must have identified and grouped all the resources, HTTP is a protocol that makes the resources easy to find and access on the web. 

Links: Unlike hyperlinks, links make the job of the URI easy by connecting all the identified resources together.

Importance Of Linked Data

Social media is the perfect example of the importance of linked data on the internet. Everything on social media today is mostly built by linking information from one data center or cloud to another. Linked data helps social media platforms interact with each other, monitor,  and store the behaviors of their users in order to recommend more interesting content as they spend time on their platform. For example, one of the biggest social networking platforms, Facebook, makes use of a linked data technology known as Open Graph Protocol in the metadata of its website to monitor the behavior of users to improve the quality of time they spend on the network.

In The Study Of Nature

In the area of life science, the importance of linked data cannot be overemphasized. New discoveries are made every day, and this discovery needs to be updated by other scientists every few months to prevent them from researching the topic. Linked data technology can help to integrate the databases of all willing research centers around the world. With a properly integrated research system, scientists will be able to share information and work faster for the development of civilization. Over the years, Australia has helped create a more integrated life science database by building a website with linked data technology capable of collecting and unifying names of new plants and animal species from around the world.

In The Financial Sector

Without the linking of data among banks and other financial institutions, local and international payments wouldn’t be possible today. Financial institutions make use of linked data technology to share customer information in order for payments to be made. Thanks to the invention and popularity of blockchain technology, payment start-ups worldwide are now leveraging the technology to build a faster, more suitable, and secure means of payment to compete with big banks. Blockchain technology is regarded as the best-linked data in the financial sector.

Government

Many governments around the world are embracing linked data to make their governments more transparent. This technology helps integrate different government documents and contracts to them easily accessible to the citizen. Governments like the United States and the United Kingdom are building their government websites on linked data systems to have a more open government.

Bottom Line

Linked data has so many roles to play in the growth of the internet and other sectors of the global economy. In the area of artificial intelligence, linked data can fast track the development of the sector because it can help machines have access to the full internet for better performance.