Semantic web gets mapped by the feet on the street

If you've not got into www.foursquare.com and given it some thought I suggest you do.

Think about all the mash ups going on, think about all the mobile phones out there, think about how great all the mapping sites and api's are improving everything from the search experience to the bog standard website map. Add all that to the emergent world of "linked data" and the roadmap to the semantic web where the web knows its own "content and context" and its "users" and then it enables the whole push and pull experience to work seemlessly. Exciting yes?

We'll www.foursquare.com have used some real smart thinking to get the community to map the real world of where "people meet locations" and businesses and in the process are mapping out the real world so that the semantic web can come one step closer. This is a real win:win which has to create the next virtuous cycle in my book.

Getting to 1M users faster than twitter doesnt surprise me, especially as everyone knows about and uses twitter and facebook now, so that induction leads to the mobile in the pocket and while sms txt and mobile browsing gets us going, but add that to GPS and human interventions and it all ping the light bulb on!