New Wine, New Wineskins

It is interesting and encouraging that semantic technology discussions have lately turned to the question of commercialization.
The discussion has finally gotten round to the question whether semantic technology's value proposition ought to be couched in terms of technology per se or, rather, in terms of the problems that the technology solves or the advantages it offers. In other words, who but the enthusiast cares that the database is in RDF triples? Who but the ontologist is concerned with whether the ontology is foundational or derived? Isn't the salient question whether the resultant product (vastly different from the technology) is more flexible, more open, faster, more accurate ... etc.?
And, of course, this is the level at which business is sold and contracts are signed. In the sales and marketing world, it is axiomatic that what one sells are benefits, not technologies or features. "New and unimproved" does not open checkbooks.
But I will argue that to put too much emphasis on comparative "paydirt" is to miss the paradigmatic nature of semantic technology. It is not merely that semantic technology may often better facilitate a conventional business case -- may, for example, be less costly, more powerful, more flexible. Rather, what makes this whole realm intellectually exciting and fiscally compelling is that it represents entirely new ways of thinking about business on the internet. Semantic technology enables and entails entirely new business models altogether.
In future posts, I will:

1. attempt to show how the nature of the World Wide Web (the 'web of documents') gave rise to the business models that it has and
2. work in earnest to derive new business models from the essential structure of a Semantic Web (a 'web of data').

No doubt, I've got my work cut out for me.