W3C held a workshop on the Web of Things in Berlin on 25-26 June, hosted by Siemens. There were just under 120 participants from around the World, attending on behalf of companies, research institutes, standards organizations, Industry Associations, and Government Institutions. There was broad agreement on the problems that currently face the Internet of Things (IoT). Until now, the focus has been on the devices and communications technologies. There is a growing awareness that the business opportunities will be centered on the associated services, moreover, the current situation is one of fragmentation with products being developed in isolation due to a plethora of IoT protocols and a lack of a shared approach to services.
Rather than focusing on the IoT layer, it is now critical to focus on what is needed to open up the markets for applications and services that sit on top of the IoT. The workshop attendees showed strong support for W3C to initiate new standards work to help realize the huge potential for the Web of Things as a web scale layer sitting above the IoT.
The workshop examined the opportunities for open Web standards for service platforms in the network edge (e.g. home gateways) and the cloud, along with the challenges for security, privacy and the integration with the Web of data. The next step will be to launch a Web of Things Interest Group, following the successful precedents set by the Web & Mobile, and Web & TV Interest Groups. The workshop report is available at: http://www.w3.org/2014/02/wot/report.html
