The W3C SPARQL Working Group is currently developing a SPARQL Service Description designed to standardize how SPARQL "endpoints," or information sources, present their data, with specific standards for how they describe the types and amount of data they have, says Lee Feigenbaum, vice president of technology at Cambridge Semantics and co-chair of the W3C SPARQL Working Group.

Tools, platforms, prewritten components and services are available to help make semantic deployments less time-consuming, less technically complex and (somewhat) less costly. Here's a brief look at some options.

is an open-source Java framework for building semantic Web applications. It includes APIs for RDF, RDFS and OWL, a SPARQL query engine and a rule-based inference engine. Another platform, , is an open-source framework for storing, inferencing and querying RDF data.

Most leading semantic Web platforms come with knowledge repositories that describe general terms, concepts and acronyms, giving users a running start in creating ontologies. "Customers have conflicting demands: to have the platform be able to come back with accurate answers out of the box, and to have it tailored to their business area," says Seth Redmore, vice president of product management at Lexalytics.