The Fractal Nature of the Semantic Web

In the past, many knowledge representation systems failed because they were too monolithic and didn't scale well, whereas other systems failed to have an impact because they were small and isolated. Along with this trade-off in size, there is also a constant tension between the cost involved in building a larger community that can interoperate through common terms and the cost of the lack of interoperability. Its main contribution is in recognizing and supporting the fractal patterns of scalable web systems. In this article we discuss why fractal patterns are an appropriate model for web systems and how semantic web technologies can be used to design scalable and interoperable systems.