LESS - Template-based syndication and presentation of linked data

Abstract

Recently, the publishing of structured, semantic information as linked data has gained quite some momentum. For ordinary users on the Internet, however, this information is not yet very visible and (re-) usable. With LESS we present an end-to-end approach for the syndication and use of linked data based on the definition of templates for linked data resources and SPARQL query results. Such syndication templates are edited, published and shared by using a collaborative Web platform. Templates for common types of entities can then be combined with specific, linked data resources or SPARQL query results and integrated into a wide range of applications, such as personal homepages, blogs/wikis, mobile widgets etc. In order to improve reliability and performance of linked data, LESS caches versions either for a certain time span or for the case of inaccessibility of the original source. LESS supports the integration of information from various sources as well as any text-based output formats. This allows not only to generate HTML, but also diagrams, RSS feeds or even complete data mashups without any programming involved. © 2010 Springer-Verlag.