If you haven't heard about the semantic web (Web 3.0), get ready for it. It's basically the "web of data" - a way to understand the meaning behind the stuff on a web page. Understanding what a person, place or event is - rather than depending on just keywords and then using that data to present information.
To see this in action, compare Freebase and Wikiopedia. Wikipedia and Freebase both appeal to people who love to use and organize information, but the difference lies in the type of information covered, and the way it's organized. Wikipedia arranges information in the form of articles, while Freebase lists facts and statistics. Freebase information is good not only for people who want to research facts, but also for people who want to use those facts to build other websites and applications.
Check it out: http://www.freebase.com/
Example: http://www.freebase.com/view/royalty
Another Tool: Operator from Firefox https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/4106
Operator lets you combine pieces of information on Web sites with applications in ways that are useful. For instance, Flickr + Google Maps, Upcoming + Google Calendar, Yahoo! Local + your address book, and many more possibilities and permutations. All of these scenarios are possible due to Microformats, an emerging standard for injecting semantics into HTML.
