It isn’t hard to see why schema.org is going to win out over “other” semantic web efforts.
The first paragraph at the schema.org website says why:
This site provides a collection of schemas, i.e., html tags, that webmasters can use to markup their pages in ways recognized by major search providers. Search engines including Bing, Google and Yahoo! rely on this markup to improve the display of search results, making it easier for people to find the right web pages.
- Easy: Uses HTML tags
- Immediate Utility: Recognized by Bing, Google and Yahoo!
- Immediate Payoff: People can find the right web pages (your web pages)
Ironic that when HTML came up the scene, any number of hypertext engines offered more complex and useful approaches to hypertext.
But the advantages of HTML were:
- Easy: Used simple tags
- Immediate Utility: Useful to the author
- Immediate Payoff: Joins hypertext network for others to find (your web pages)
I think the third advantage in each case is the crucial one. We are vain enough that making our information more findable is a real incentive, if there is a reasonable expectation of it being found. Today or tomorrow. Not ten years from now.