Peer-to-Peer and Semantic Web

Just as the industrial society of the last century depended on natural resources, today’s society depends on information. A lack of resources in the industrial society hindered development just as a lack of information hinders development in the information society. Consequently, the exchange of information becomes essential for more and more areas of society: Companies announce their products in online marketplaces and exchange electronic orders with their suppliers; in the medical area patient information is exchanged between general practitioners, hospitals and health insurances; public administration receive tax information from employers and offer online services to their citizens. As a reply to this increasing importance of information exchange, new technologies supporting a fast and accurate information exchange are being developed. Prominent examples of such new technologies are so-called

Semantic Web

and

Peer-to-Peer technologies

. These technologies address different aspects of the inherit complexity of information exchange. Semantic Web Technologies address the problem of

information complexity

by providing advanced support for representing and processing information. Peer-to-Peer technologies, on the other hand, address

system complexity

by allowing flexible and decentralized information storage and processing.