Yahoo’s «Pipes» is a web based application that radically simplifies the development of personalized mash-ups, searches, etc.. Processed data can be published as an RSS feed or JSON structure (JSON is an open standard for structuring data such as places, people, services). The following simple example shows how structured data can be processed to fit specific interests. Unstructured information generally needs to be processed in order to be useable in this framework. Yahoo «Pipes» can be used as a data mining tool for searching a vacation home in Varazze, Italy that suits your needs. The next level beyond «Pipes» would be a personal agent that represents the traveller’s interests and communicates with home owner’s agents. This example illustrates that such tools can be used for a wide variety of applications including travel information. While the following example is not particularly useful yet, it’s a glimpse of a future where semantic processing is the norm. There’s no reason why data structures have to represent factual information only. An author could publish a poetic description in the JSON data-interchange format.
Geographic location, specific search results and boolean logic is combined to find vacation homes in Varazze with at least one bathroom and a swimming pool. The output clearly cannot be considered literature yet but at least it might provide up-to-date information.