WEB 3.0 (2010–present)
This 3rd generation is “read-write-execute” (Berners-Lee). It is actually the 3rd decade of the Web. However, don’t start celebrating yet. We need to figure out what it means.
TECHIE JARGON: John Markoff (2006), who coined “Web 3.0,” called it the “intelligent Web.” Unfortunately, I’m not intelligent enough to grasp his tech definition:
“using semantic web, microformats, natural language search, data mining, machine learning, recommendation agents, and artificial intelligence technologies.” I don’t have a clue what that means.
INTERPRETATION W/ EXAMPLES #1: However, Todd Lucier (2009) provides a little more insight with: “location-aware and moment-sensitive Internet.” He emphasizes that Web 3.0 affords people all over the world the opportunity to engage with one another on a variety of devises, particularly handheld ones, which are easier than ever before. Examples with which you may be familiar include the following:
• handheld 3G and 4G devices, like the iPhone 3GS and 4.0, for fast access to Internet almost anywhere
• iPhone apps like Around Me, OneTap, LocalPicks, iTV, and StarMap, plus a bazillion others by Apple
• real time face-to-face communications like video calling with Skype Video and Google.com/videochat
• multimedia group messaging with Utterli
• gps-triggered driving directions
The iPhone 4.0 can perform most of the above functions and a lot more. Web 3.0 adds a layer to Web 2.0 tools to allow mass diffusion of video to TVs, laptops, tablets, and mobile devises with simpler interfaces. It makes tasks faster and easier than Web 2.0. Content is recognized by its context (aka “semantic”).
INTERPRETATION W/ EXAMPLES #2: Calacanis (2008) describes Web 3.0 as the creation of high-quality content and services based on Web 2.0 technology by recognizing talent and expertise:
• a Web 3.0 version of Digg would involve experts checking the validity of claims and correcting errors
• Funnyordie.com adds a layer of talent and trust to standard YouTube features like syndication and social networking
• Wikipedia is locking pages down as they reach completion
CONCLUSIONS:
Are the differences among the 3 generations of Web any clearer? Although the shift between static, read-only pages to nonstatic, interactive Websites seems kinda distinct, the actual improvements in Web 3.0 over Web 2.0 are muddier, as our earlier inklings suggested. Maybe those changes, occurring as I type, will pop out and become more meaningful as we experience them. Web 3.0 emphasizes higher quality and easier communications of every kind. I bet consumers of the iPhone 4.0 or iPad can already appreciate those changes and the popping; even better, maybe I should go buy one.
HAPPY WEBBING! Please let me know your thoughts on any of the preceding blogs, especially corrections and clarifications by any of you techies out there in cyberspace.
COPYRIGHT © 2010 Ronald A. Berk, LLC
Are you ready for 2.0? Me neither. Hold on to your keyboards. Here we go:
WEB 2.0 (2004–present)
This 2nd generation was “read-write” (Berners-Lee), social Web with interaction, active participation, and content generation. The term was coined by Darcy DiNucci (1999). It’s been called the “participatory Web” compared to Web 1.0 as the “Web-as-information source” (Decrem, 2006). It had a user-centered design to foster interactive information sharing so that users could be contributors, producers, and consumers. Examples include web applications, social media, video sharing, blogs, wikis, mashups, and folksonomies (categorizing content through tags) (see Wikipedia on Web 2.0).
USER-ORIENTED AND INTERACTIVE: Encyclopedia Britannica Online was replaced with Wikipedia, which relies on users (collectively) to constantly and quickly generate content. Users can write their own content and comment on others’ content through blogs, network groups, and social media. They can post their own social and professional profiles for others to review and create pages to advertise their businesses, events, and products on these sites. Users can even build their own social network with Ning. Other interactive services include Skype, online banking, and job and employee searching on LinkedIn and many other sites.
RELIANCE ON USER CONTRIBUTIONS: Some Webs rely almost entirely on user contributions, such as (a) social (Facebook, Twitter, Digg) and professional networks (LinkedIn), which permit users to create and share audio, video, text, and multimedia content, (b) photo (Flickr) and video (Flickr, YouTube) distribution and sharing sites, and (c) professional listservs. Without these contributions, most of these sites might vanish into cyber-air.
BOTTOM LINE: Overall, Web 2.0 facilitates creativity, information sharing and dissemination, dynamic, ever-changing content, and collaboration which has led to Web-based communities and the hosted services listed above. It radically changed the way people use the Internet, from 1-way to every which-way.
Tomorrow I’ll examine some of the criticisms of Web 2.0, and then on to Web 3.0.
COPYRIGHT © 2010 Ronald A. Berk, LLC
Are you ready for 1.0? Me neither. Here’s what I missed while I was in the storm drain. Where were you? Inkling, maybe?
WEB 1.0 (1991–2003)
This 1st generation was “read-only” (Berners-Lee, founder of WWW), 1-way flow of information for passive viewing. Websites were business-oriented, static pages intended as information sources (see Wikipedia on Web 1.0). They provided content to read, such as Encyclopedia Britannica Online, or products to purchase using Shopping Carts, such as Amazon.
Most institutional sites, such as your college, university, or business, and personal sites followed this mold where the user opened the site to obtain information and typically signed in with a user name and password. That was usually the only activity requested of the user. (NOTE: Amazon did provide readers the chance to write and post reviews on the site. Many other catalogue-type sites did not.)
A major shift in Web design and use occurred with Web 2.0. That deserves its own blog. Stay tuned.
COPYRIGHT © 2010 Ronald A. Berk, LLC
