This document provides an introduction to the semantic web. It begins by defining the semantic web as a web-scale architecture that adds a layer of meaning to data on the web using metadata. It discusses who is using semantic web standards like schema.org and linked open data. The document then explains the key technologies that make the semantic web work, including Resource Description Framework (RDF) for describing data as subject-predicate-object triples, ontologies for describing relationships between data like RDFS and OWL, and SPARQL for querying semantic data. It provides examples of how these standards and technologies allow data to be connected and interpreted by machines.