Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee Unplugged: Semantic Web better than APIs for data access

Last night at the MITX (Massachusetts Innovation and Technology Exchange) Technology Awards held at the Four Seasons Hotel in Boston, MA, the inventor of the World Wide Web Sir Tim Berners-Lee was awarded the organizations 2007 Lifetime Achievement Award (last year, Nicholas Negroponte was the recipient). Prior to the main event getting underway (many other awards for innovation and leadership were handed out to Massachusetts-based hi-tech companies), knowing that Sir Tim was "in the house," I asked about his whereabouts and was led to a VIP reception where he was holding court with several attendees including Fortune Magazine senior editor David Kirkpatrick (who later moderated a great discussion about the mobile Web). As that reception wrapped up, Sir Tim stuck...