While tinkering with some ideas for describing small businesses in a FOAF-like way it struck me that the most interesting formats are ones that promote linkage. FOAF has the knows predicate, but how could you link businesses together. One intriguing way is to describe what a business has and what it needs, e.g. this company has 'engines' and needs 'nuts and bolts' and 'lubricating oil'.

It might also be fun to use it with FOAF. I might need 'books written by Jack Vance' and have 'Eminem cds' that I'm willing to dispose of.

The vocabulary is simple. It has two predicates: wants and has. For a contrived example, in my FOAF I might add:

<foaf:Person>
  <foaf:name>Ian Davis</foaf:name>
  <barter:wants>
    <wn:Job />
  </barter:wants>
  <barter:has>
    <wn:Skill  rdf:resource="urn:skills:programming:perl">
  </barter:has>
</foaf:Person>

For a business I might write:

<Business>
  <name>Hackitt n Run</name>
  <barter:has>
    <wn:Job />
  </barter:has>
  <barter:needs>
    <foaf:Person>
      <barter:has>
       <wn:Skill
         rdf:resource="urn:skills:programming:perl">
      </barter:has>
    </foaf:Person>
  </barter:needs>
</Business>

The barter vocabulary might open up some interesting network applications, perhaps finding chains of barterers etc.

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