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What to Expect from Web 3.0

The buzz is growing about Web 3.0, but as usual you have to
filter out all the hype, self-serving PR, old-fashioned
nonsense, newfangled marketing verbiage and other noise. You
will then find a few facts that you can grab onto and try to
figure out what’s going on. The first thing to remember is that,
like “Web 2.0,” the term Web 3.0 is not an official term of any
sort, does not represent any particular protocol or standard,
belongs to no one – and is used, misused and made nearly
meaningless by everyone. It is, quite simply, just an arbitrary
“version number” that, at most, describes how the Internet is
built and how it delivers services, at least as of the
freeze-framed moment in time that represents the end of 2.0 and
the start of 3.0.

Sometimes it is called the “semantic Web,” but perhaps the
less-used term “everyware” is more descriptive. The new scenario
is one of ubiquitous computing, the advent of cloud computing
where a “thin client” (no- or low-powered PC, or even just a
monitor and mouse) runs cloud-based applications using
cloud-based data and services. The Apple iPhone, iPod and iPad
are all examples of formerly standalone devices that were
integrated into the Web, and connect people in a seamless,
real-time and very simple way with – well, with everything, from
libraries and department stores to other people, anywhere in the
world.

From Read-Only to Interactivity

One of the Web’s true “parents” was Tim Berners-Lee, who had his
own notion of how the technology and the Internet developed. The
first phase of the Web had read-only capabilities. It was
essentially a spectator experience until read-write
functionality came along (sure, call it Web 2.0) that included
services to enable contribution, collaboration, content creation
and interactivity. The next step in Berners-Lee’s version
vision, Web 3.0, is heralded as “new territory,” where users can
assemble and run their own applications, create all sorts of
cooperative and collaborative enterprises, and truly put their
ideas in motion rather than simply uploading stuff to this, that
or the other site.

People with money invested in other, still-useful devices -
phones, PDAs, fax machines, etc. – don’t have to worry about Web
3.0 making them obsolete. In addition to letting users create
their own tools, Web 3.0 is another step in the evolution of
usage and interaction in which the Internet holds multiple
databases and content that will be accessible to many
non-browser-based devices and applications. The obvious uses
will be video that streams from a PC to a TV, picture frames
that receive wireless updates from an online or local photo app,
and phones that display items recommended by your trusted
sources – friends, review sites, experts – when you’re shopping.

From Data to Knowledge

In addition to the foregoing characteristics, Web 3.0 is also
said to encompass other important advances. For one thing, all
sorts of inputs are possible, which means all sorts of new
combinations become possible. Content can be made even more
broadly relevant when it’s related to GPS, so that social
networking, for example, can be enhanced by knowing who is
where and doing what.

More importantly, you will get more and better control of your
data and be able to establish a number of personalization
systems to “wrap” your personal information with different
levels and types of protection – so that you can share it
widely, narrowly or not at all. Over time, the accuracy of
recommendations and trustworthiness of ranking systems will help
us determine which data sources to take seriously and which to
avoid.

From Business Faxes to Online Games

With the rise of “linkable web apps” you will be able to use all
of your different desktop, server and mobile devices and
applications – telephones, fax machines and online fax services,
instant messaging, pagers – and control them from a single
browser window on your desktop, smartphone or handheld device.
All of it will take place in an always-on, always-everywhere
environment, with functionality embedded sometimes in hardware,
sometimes in software, sometimes in both – so that when you need
to take care of business without downloading the capability,
you’ll be able to do so.

Along with more of the visual and voice-based services that are
already starting to proliferate, there will be more lifelike
avatar interactions in the growing virtual social networking
world. This will lead to social shopping trips and virtual
reality gaming far beyond anything currently being done.

In mid-2009, the “Wall Street Journal” ran a story on the
development of Web 3.0 capabilities and the promise of
ever-greater interconnectedness among technologies, products,
services and people. The story even gave us a yardstick by which
to measure the success of Web 3.0, if in fact it does succeed.
If, as the WSJ puts it, “computing could become as integrated
and invisible as electricity and just as important” – and we can
attribute it to the new and improved Web – we’ll know that the
promise has lived up to the hype. Here’s hoping!