Part of our problem, I fear is that we have collectively tended to approach the situation with an essentially evangelical style.

Time and again, this has got smart people interested and intrigued, and so they go try out some RDF tools.

Very often this is a frustrating experience. And there are good technical reasons why working with RDF (* or any other '3-tuple based Structured Data Representation' *) will often be frustrating. The 3-tuple approach thrives in chaotic situations where data flows around, with bits missing, bits added, extensions and gaps everywhere. This kind of data is intrinsically rather annoying to deal with. There are workaround and strategies (details on request :) but that frustration is inevitably core to the experience, because it is a set of problems the RDF data model was designed to engage with.

So http://www.w3.org/DesignIssues/LinkedData.html marked a turning point when TimBL took FOAF's RDF linking model, improved it by demanding URIs everywhere (rather than our earlier bNodes and seeAlsos), and inspired mass publication of RDF data. Until we had data, few were RDF-curious. Now we have data, we can disappoint more curious new people per month than ever before. Or on a good day, make them happy.

Hey... we've increased our 'disappointment potential' - result!