# OpenLink Data Spaces
[Warning]This blog post contains technical information, apologies to those who read my blog for the more personal posts[/Warning]
What is ODS?
ODS or OpenLink Data Spaces is a Virtuoso powered web application, it can be seen as an implementation of something similar to what Jon Udell calls the Fourth Platform. It is a distributed system that has been developed with a social/collaborative mindset. It has its own blogging, wiki, photo gallery and bookmarking components, and also integrates with WordPress and MediaWiki. ODS can also grab information from services such as del.icio.us and facebook.
The clever thing about ODS is that it opens all of these components and integrations to the Semantic Web. You can write SPARQL queries to look through the various components and integrations of the system, yep, you can SPARQL your own WordPress blog! This has been enabled by using Semantic vocabularies: SIOC, SKOS and FOAF - in addition to some innovative use of technologies such as XBEL, OpenID, OPML, ATOM, RSS and SyncML etc etc etc.
More details about what ODS is can be seen: (HERE) and (HERE)
So you’d think that all of the user interface is going to be a big mess of complexity - well OpenLink have done a good job of clearing up the UI, and they have plans to improve it further. So how do we use it.
How to use ODS
Well, I have been exploring ODS (and Virtuoso and OAT) for only two days and there is a lot more to it all that I haven’t seen yet. But the interface for ODS is simple, we are provided with the components at the top of the web app, and by clicking on any one of them you have the option to create the a new instance of that component (or application as it is called within the system - quite reminiscent of systems like Facebook who have apps and Google who have widgets).
One of the cool parts of ODS is the briefcase, which brings all of the other components together int