We’ve just launched NUM [1] in the UK, it’s an alternative to the semantic web [2] but based in DNS. We’ve published 23 million data points about 4.8m UK businesses.<p>We had some really interesting HN feedback when we previously posted about one of our example apps [3] so keen to hear what the community has to say this time round.<p>1. https://www.num.uk<p>2. https://num.uk/blog/we-crawled-5m-uk-websites-and-published-23m-data-points-to-dns<p>3. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27598164
Is a semantic web that failed because it was too complicated for businesses to setup established by letting them setup DNS records?<p>I’m working on making the web semantic (on your search query) by using large language models which is more equipped for reality since businesses can keep doing their websites as they want
Looking at the NUM protocol, this looks a lot like X500 type addressing format glued into a DNS record.<p>Conceptually the idea had legs, but I can't see wholesale adoption of it. Whilst all (most?) of the records are hosted at Num.net it doesn't meet it's promise of decentralised.<p>It feels like you need a few big-name companies to stand up and endorse you, and set their own NUM entries on their DNS.
I think this comment highlighted the issue best (and it's not possible to address really): <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27632195" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27632195</a><p>I was initially curious, then cautious, then a bit disappointed as I dug into how you're doing what you're doing.<p>What <i>would</i> make this data truly decentralized and "DNS-based" is if the data was published to the companies' respective domains as extra standardized records (and even thinking about it for 30 seconds I can see the problems with that). As it stands, everything is hosted on num.net.<p>It's literally just a JSON API with extra steps.<p>Now don't get me wrong; you've opened my mind to the fact that yes, hosting certain things over DNS has use cases. I think you built something neat, but I too am concerned that you're directly contributing to a tragedy of the commons effect. You're piggy-backing off decentralized infrastructure that gets to be free because its costs are <i>globally</i> minimal.<p>In other words, you're paying for your infrastructure by fishing for pennies in the Trevi fountain.
So you're saying that you reinvented the WHOIS protocol?<p>Why didn't you go for RDAP, the new protocol that AfriNIC, APNIC, RIPE and even LACNIC are adopting?<p>[1] <a href="https://www.icann.org/rdap" rel="nofollow">https://www.icann.org/rdap</a>