The foaf:interest property represents an interest of a foaf:Agent, through indicating a foaf:Document whose foaf:topic(s) broadly characterises that interest.

For example, we might claim that a person or group has an interest in RDF by saying they stand in a foaf:interest relationship to the RDF home page. Loosly, such RDF would be saying "this agent is interested in the topic of this page".

Uses of foaf:interest include a variety of filtering and resource discovery applications. It could be used, for example, to help find answers to questions such as "Find me members of this organisation with an interest in XML who have also contributed to CPAN)".

This approach to characterising interests is intended to compliment other mechanisms (such as the use of controlled vocabulary). It allows us to use a widely known set of unique identifiers (Web page URIs) with minimal pre-coordination. Since URIs have a controlled syntax, this makes data merging much easier than the use of free-text characterisations of interest.

Note that interest does not imply expertise, and that this FOAF term provides no support for characterising levels of interest: passing fads and lifelong quests are both examples of someone's foaf:interest. Describing interests in full is a complex undertaking; foaf:interest provides one basic component of FOAF's approach to these problems.