“If you’ve paid any attention to the web standards discussions, you may have heard the phrase “Semantic Web”, or perhaps even been pressured to use standards with names like “Dublin Core Metadata” or “RDF”. If you’ve attempted to read any of the available documentation on these topics, you were probably intimidated by terms such as “reify” and all sorts of artificial intelligence concepts. This document attempts to explain what all of this chatter really means, and help you decide which parts you should care about and why. I have tried to use common-sense, real-world examples and stay away from complicated terminology.”