So there are a couple of great RDF browser out there already such as Tabulator and ODE or VisiNav, but what I haven’t seen so far is what I call inline-browsing. The before mentioned browsers all more or less take the entire RDF graph and render some sort of tabular or other view (time line, map, etc.).
However, RDFa gives you the possibility to take the context of an RDF statement into account. Take for example a longish FOAF document. The HTML structure already gives you a nice hint where what is discussed. You might be only interested in the social network one has or the contact details. This contextual information is lost when one switches over to the pure, global RDF view.
Well, last Sunday I sat down and hacked – as a proof of concept – lidaman, an inline linked data browser for RDFa. You can integrate it into your site using the source or install the bookmarklet and play around in the sandbox. Looks like following, then:
Web of Data 
Hi Michael,
I agree that using the context of the RDFa as a location for interacting with the user is an extremely powerful technique. It’s also one of the key points of my Tech Talk at Google last year (see http://bit.ly/14LMqA).
Another example which isn’t in the talk, is geocoding partial addresses provided via RDFa, and then placing the geocoded results right back onto the element that you got the address from, as a tooltip. More details here: http://bit.ly/181LlV
The bit I’m not quite sure about is how to express these kinds of actions. At the moment I’m using a version of Fresnel, but to be quite honest, it’s rather cumbersome, and I can’t see it being easy for users to make use of.
Ah, well…another problem to solve. 🙂
Nice work though.
All the best,
Mark
Posted by Mark Birbeck | 2009-04-30, 21:23Mark,
Thanks for your comment. Of course you’re right. You have told the community this for quite a while now and also applied it.
For sure I’m aware of your great work and maybe this has subconsciously motivated me 😉 I’m sorry for not making this clear upfront and very much appreciate that you’ve provided the background, now.
Just to clarify: when I’m saying ‘but what I haven’t seen so far …’ I was actually referring to linked data browsers, only. I should have been more precise, my bad.
Cheers,
Michael
Posted by woddiscovery | 2009-05-01, 09:10Hi Michael,
Oh…I wasn’t feeling unloved or anything…I do apologise. 🙂
I was just saying that we seem to be heading in the same direction, and if you hadn’t already seen it, you might find some of the ideas in the talk interesting.
Whatever else, there are still some very challenging (and exciting) problems to solve in this space.
All the best,
Mark
Posted by Mark Birbeck | 2009-05-01, 09:37