Danny Ayers

Full name Daniel John Ayers, also Dan Ayers, and danja on GitHub and Twitter, djayers on YouTube.

A signal trace that starts as a sine wave, becomes a square wave, and ends as a graph of connected nodes: music, electronics and the Semantic Web. sound circuits graphs

I work where signals, sound and meaning meet. That has meant electronics and music, a lot of writing about the Web, and a long stretch helping get the Semantic Web and Linked Data off the ground. These days I do independent Web research and development from the Tuscan hills, mostly on knowledge graphs for AI agents and on synthesizer DSP.

Based
Garfagnana, Tuscany, Italy. Originally from Tideswell, Derbyshire.
Working as
Independent: Web R&D, Semantic Web, electronics, music
Cited
Google Scholar and dblp
Machine-readable
This page carries RDFa; the full profile is in Turtle and RDF/XML

Three strands

Electronics

Where it started, and it never went away. Analogue circuits and instruments, microcontrollers such as the ESP32 and Daisy Seed, Eurorack modules, and lately experiments with LLM-assisted circuit design.

Music

It began in the late 1970s with the experimental groups The Pump and Nocturnal Emissions. Now it’s synthesis and signal processing: distortion and physical-modelling synthesis, wavefolding, generative plugins, MCP servers that let agents drive a DAW or TouchDesigner, and my own recordings.

The Web

RDF, SPARQL, Linked Data, XML and syndication feeds. Community work around W3C’s Semantic Web outreach and the Linking Open Data project; now, Semantic Web memory and messaging for LLM agents.

History

  1. 2024 – now

    Independent research & development

    The JigDAW web-native audio plugin specification, and knowledge-graph infrastructure for AI agents: Semem (Semantic Web memory), Transmissions (pipelines), TIA (XMPP multi-agent dialogue), plus Model Context Protocol servers and DSP for Eurorack hardware.

  2. 2011 – 2023

    Independent Web R&D and writing

    Web and Linked Data development, tooling experiments, and co-authoring Beginning XML, 5th edition (2012).

  3. 2007 – 2011

    Semantic Web evangelist, Community Platform manager

    Talis. Building applications on Talis’s hosted Semantic Web platform, community work, and the weekly This Week’s Semantic Web round-up on the Nodalities blog. In parallel: W3C Semantic Web Education and Outreach group, co-author of Cool URIs for the Semantic Web, and early contributor to Linking Open Data.

  4. 2006 – 2009

    Columnist

    IEEE Internet Computing. A run of columns on the Semantic Web and where the Web was heading.

  5. 2003 – 2006

    Independent developer and author

    IdeaGraph, idea mapping for the Semantic Web; contributions to the IETF Atom Syndication Format (RFC 4287); books on RSS and Atom and on Web 2.0 programming; a widely read blog.

  6. 1999 – 2002

    Technical author

    Wrox Press and Sams. Co-author of books on server-side and mobile Java, JSP, XML metadata, MSXML and SVG, plus technical reviews of many more.

  7. Before 1999

    Electronics

    Circuit design and writing about it, including two cover articles for Electronics World and Wireless World.

  8. 1980 – 1984

    Nocturnal Emissions

    Founding member, with Nigel Ayers and Caroline K. Industrial and post-industrial sound collage, tape work and live noise on the Sterile Records label; first performance March 1981. About the group.

  9. 1977 – 1980

    The Pump

    With Nigel Ayers and Ian Round. An experimental group of heavy bass, distorted guitar and cut-up tapes; I played synth and guitar and sang. Cassette-only releases went out through Rough Trade; the 1980 sessions were reissued on CD by Klanggalerie in 2009. Listen.

Current work

JigDAW

A plugin format native to the Web, and a browser DAW to host it. Plugins are described in RDF, run as WebAssembly, and also load in native hosts as VST3, CLAP or LV2. Try it live. JavaScript, C++

Semem

Semantic Web memory for intelligent agents: Graph RAG over RDF, with MCP access and a browser workbench. JavaScript

Transmissions

A workflow compositor for building small data-processing pipelines from simple steps. JavaScript

TIA

An experimental XMPP framework where agents debate, poll and plan, using Lingue/IBIS structured dialogue and MCP tools. JavaScript

Disyn

Distortion-synthesis oscillators (DSF, ModFM, PAF, wavefolding, through-zero FM) running in the browser, on ESP32 and on the Daisy-based Bluemchen Eurorack module. C++

Chatterbox

A speech-like sound generator, sometimes played by hand. C++

Downspout

Generative VST plugin experiments. C++

Reaper MCP

An MCP server that lets AI agents build, mix and master tracks in the Reaper DAW.

Postcraft

A minimal static site builder, used for this site’s blog.

Writing

1,400+ citations on Google Scholar, across books, papers, a W3C note and magazine articles.

Books

  • Beginning XML, 5th edition with Joe Fawcett and Liam Quin. Wrox, 2012
  • Beginning XML, 4th edition with David Hunter, Jeff Rafter, Joe Fawcett, Eric van der Vlist and others. Wrox, 2007
  • Professional Web 2.0 Programming with Eric van der Vlist, Erik Bruchez, Joe Fawcett and Alessandro Vernet. Wrox, 2006
  • Beginning RSS and Atom Programming with Andrew Watt. Wrox, 2005
  • Beginning XML, 3rd edition with David Hunter, Andrew Watt, Jeff Rafter, Jon Duckett and others. Wrox, 2004
  • SVG Unleashed with Chris Lilley, Randy George, Christian Wenz, Kevin Lindsey and others; edited by Andrew Watt. Sams, 2002
  • XML Application Development with MSXML 4.0 with Steven Livingstone and Stephen Mohr. Wrox, 2002
  • Professional XML Meta Data with Kal Ahmed, Mark Birbeck and others. Wrox, 2001
  • Professional Java Mobile Programming with Ronald Ashri, Steve Atkinson, Nadia Nashi and others. Wrox, 2001
  • Professional JSP with Karl Avedal, Timothy Briggs and others. Wrox, 2000
  • Professional Java Server Programming with Hans Bergsten, Jason Diamond, Mark Wilcox and others. Wrox, 1999

I’ve also been technical reviewer on many other books.

Specifications

  • JigDAW A web-native audio plugin format: a plugin is a URL whose RDF profile describes it and whose WebAssembly runs in the browser. Author, 2026
  • Cool URIs for the Semantic Web with Sauermann, Cyganiak and Völkel. W3C Interest Group Note, 2008
  • The Atom Syndication Format RFC 4287. Contributor in the IETF Atom Publishing Format and Protocol working group, 2005

Papers

  • SCOVO: Using Statistics on the Web of Data with Hausenblas, Halb, Raimond and Feigenbaum. ESWC 2009
  • Tal4Rdf: lightweight presentation for the Semantic Web SFSW 2009
  • Semantic MARC, MARC21 and the Semantic Web with Styles and Shabir. LDOW 2008
  • Interlinking Open Data on the Web with Bizer, Heath and Raimond. ESWC 2007 demo; the Linking Open Data project

Magazine features

  • Cover article Electronics World
  • Cover article Wireless World

Columns in IEEE Internet Computing

Full lists on dblp, Academia.edu and my author page.

Elsewhere