At least Google is moving closer towards owning the semantic web, and nobody is fussing.  They already have a web service interface, and webquotes allows what is essentially annotation metadata about a resource.  And assuming that Sergey was not leading Dave on at the conference last week, they are gung-ho about allowing people to update metadata directly into Google.  Am I the only person who is grasping the full potential of this?

Here is something to think about:  if you could "push" your web pages to Google to be indexed, and Google already caches those pages for access, why would you even have a web server?  If you publish to Google's cloud, you get automatic indexing, metadata like who is linking to you, and more.  And Google can add little semantic web-like features such as webquotes every few months to keep you hooked.  Then, the advantages of a central index really kick in when metadata starts to explode.  Obviously Google isn't pushing the "we made a better Internet" angle yet, but they could -- and the fact that they are so carefully surrounding key strategic bits of territory is not a coincidence.  I think AOL and MSFT both blew it already, and the Google guys are not as "aww, shucks, we just like to write web crawler software" as they talk.  Game over; the tired old Internet can't compete.

I wonder why nobody is publicly speculating yet about why Microsoft seems to be so interested in location services?