The Semantic Web provides a common framework that allows data to be shared and reused across application, enterprise, and community boundaries. It is a collaborative effort led by W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) with participation from a large number of researchers and industrial partners. The Semantic Web is often talked about as the next generation of the Web making it processable by machines (as well as humans).
W3C has developed several standards to implement the Semantic Web. These include:
In addition to those "official" standards, various groups are suggesting extensions to the Semantic Web stack, including