Why Linked Data? LD allows us to build a distributed, scalable and timely updated database on the web. Anybody can extend it by putting their data under their domain by “use of a hyperlink to unambiguously denote an entity” (K. Idehen). Adopting this wider definition, we can find 1. a data space with traditional LD deployments (#/303 + RDF) becoming mature pillars of information and 2. a rapid-growing space enabled by Schema.org and JSON-LD, together forming the largest, distributed and constantly updating knowledge graph on earth.
Are there alternative solutions? Blockchains provide algorithmic trust in smart contracts, yet it is not foreseeable that they ever will become fast or cheap enough to effectively move around the long tail of information. Big Data struggles with variety, where ontologies have proven to be a solution. Other concepts exist (P2P, IPFS), yet to the best of our knowledge, none comes even close to the capabilities of Linked Data for timely spreading information on a massive scale.
What is the Linkmaster 3000? An online tool to manage linked data spaces and make them better integrated in the global database formed by Linked Data Principles. Providers can announce their entities, thus improving visibility in a Semantic SEO manner, links and vocab mappings are managed collaboratively thus easing the effort to find, retrieve and integrate relevant data. The technology is a scale-up of DBpedia’s feature as an integration layer for Wikipedia’s language editions and as the kernel for the Linked Open Data cloud.
