Picture from: luisvilla
Back when the internet was just beginning to recover from the big bad bubble burst of the late 90’s, web developers, and designers alike, began to create more robust and adaptable content and websites. Forced to create a better product, at a lower price, and doing it in half the time spawned many small companies ready to quickly move and deploy whatever it was that they were selling. That phenomenon was later transformed and dubbed Web 2.0 and it created a clamor for it’s older cousin, Web 3.0. The term has been in the works since early 2006 but now I believe that we are finally on the verge of seeing products and applications designed to fit the web 3.0 model, of course, one question is still bugging me. What the hell is it?
Web 3.0 as defined by Wikipedia:
Web 3.0 is a term used to describe the future of the World Wide Web. Following the introduction of the phrase “Web 2.0″ as a description of the recent evolution of the Web, many technologists, journalists, and industry leaders have used the term “Web 3.0″ to hypothesize about a future wave of Internet innovation.
Also taken from Wikipedia:
At the Seoul Digital Forum in May 2007, Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, was asked to define Web 2.0 and Web 3.0. He responded:
Web 2.0 is a marketing term, and I think you’ve just invented Web 3.0.
But if I were to guess what Web 3.0 is, I would tell you that it’s a different way of building applications… My prediction would be that Web 3.0 will ultimately be seen as applications which are pieced together. There are a number of characteristics: the applications are relatively small, the data is in the cloud, the applications can run on any device, PC or mobile phone, the applications are very fast and they’re very customizable. Furthermore, the applications are distributed virally: literally by social networks, by email. You won’t go to the store and purchase them… That’s a very different application model than we’ve ever seen in computing.
Here’s a popular article from Jeffrey Zeldman over at A List Apart (www.alistapart.com) back in 2006 – here (http://www.alistapart.com/articles/web3point0). In it, he talks about how bad it is to give title to the web phenomeon. Instead I believe he is asking us to work happy and live healthy. Yeah my own summary to an extent but the point is still there. The web 3.0 is coming and you must not let it get ahead of you.
As the first properly valued “Web 2.0” properties began to find buyers, a frenzy like the old one popped hideously back to life. Yahoo spent how much? Google bought what? Here was real blood in the water.
But how to persuade the other sharks in the tank that this blood feast was different from the previous boom-and-bust? Easy: Dismiss everything that came before as “Web 1.0.”
I can say with some level of confidence that we are definitely ready to see the new web, 3.0 that is. Take a look at what web services have become, and are quickly becoming. Take a look at Twitter, Flickr, Digg, and Pownce. Go even further underground and look at less known sites like meemix or fatdoor.
The internet has revolutionized the way data is stored, shared, and of course, sold. I don’t see it slowing down. In fact, I see it speeding up. My prediction for the Web 3.0 is this. It will come and before we all know it, it will be here in our faces, making lives happier and easier. I believe that it will signal the newest signs of artificial intelligence and we will see a time when machine will work in closer proximity to man. :borg: