Just in case you missed it, the web now has version numbers. Nearly three years ago, amid continued hand-wringing over the dot-com crash, a man named Dale Dougherty dreamed up something called Web 2.0, and the idea soon took on a life of its own. In the beginning, it was little more than a rallying cry, a belief that the Internet would rise again. But as Dougherty's O'Reilly Media put together the first Web 2.0 Conference in late 2005, the term seemed to trumpet a particular kind of online revolution, a World Wide Web of the people.Web 2.0 came to describe almost any site, service, or technology that promoted sharing and collaboration right down to the Net's grass roots. That includes blogs and wikis, tags and RSS feeds, del.icio.us and Flickr, MySpace and YouTube. Because the concept blankets so many disparate ideas, some have questioned how meaningful—and how useful—it really is, but there's little doubt it owns a spot in our collective consciousness. Whether or not it makes sense, we now break the history of the Web into two distinct stages: Today we have Web 2.0, and before that there was Web 1.0.
Which raises the question: What will Web 3.0 look like? Yes, it's too early to say for sure. In many ways, even Web 2.0 is a work in progress. But it goes without saying that new Net technologies are always under development—inside universities, think tanks, and big corporations, as much as Silicon Valley start-ups—and blogs are already abuzz with talk of the Web's next generation.
To many, Web 3.0 is something called the Semantic Web, a term coined by Tim Berners-Lee, the man who invented the (first) World Wide Web. In essence, the Semantic Web is a place where machines can read Web pages much as we humans read them, a place where search engines and software agents can better troll the Net and find what we're looking for. "It's a set of standards that turns the Web into one big database," says Nova Spivack, CEO of Radar Networks, one of the leading voices of this new-age Internet.
HISTORY
The term Web 3.0 first appeared prominently in early 2006 in a blog article by Jeffrey Zeldman critical of Web 2.0 and associated technologies such as Ajax.
Just in case you aren’t aware, Web 2.0 is a term coined to describe the phletora of websites that exists nowadays catering to Internet users to have a place where they can network and participate in a more interactive way. Examples of web 2.0 based are Flickr, where users can share photos, and Wikipedia, a place where users can help to contribute to an article’s content either by editing or adding to it.
And not forgetting, blogging is also included in the web 2.0 family. Compared to the conventional fashion of publishing, it allows readers to share their views by commenting on it. And recently there’s a discussion of the possibilty of the third wave to hit the web in near future, the web 3.0.
What exactly is web 3.0? It basically means web browsing with 3D experience. If Web 2.0 is built towards the social side of the online world, web 3.0 is expected to be where the money will be made by the corporations. Although it have existed for quite some time now, but the exposure is for web 3.0 based applications more towards focused groups. This is possible, thanks to the development of faster processors and hi-speed broadband access that keep on coming our way nowadays.
Web 3.0 based applications are expected to be a virtual reality location where consumers can try anything. An example would be the Second Life, where more than 1 million players, including offline merchants participate. I can’t wait to try out my new shirt virtually!
what is Web 1.0, 2.0, and 3.0
What do people mean when they talk about the Web 2.0?" is a query we receive repeatedly, and probably has as many answers as the number of people out there using the term. However, since talk about the Web 3.0 has surfaced in the last year or so, a whole new level of confusion seems to have set in. In an effort to help people understand the ideas behind buzzwords like Web 2.0 and Web 3.0, let's go through what exactly these terms mean (if anything), and how they apply to your ecommerce business.
A broad definition
I want to make it clear at the start that this article is meant to be a broad definition of the challenges that cause people to think in terms of Web 2.0 and Web 3.0. Since these are buzzwords and not clearly defined terms, think of this as an attempt to provide a bird's-eye view of the ever-changing lay of the land on the web. In an effort to create discreet "versions" of the web that can be compared, I will borrow from the W3C Director Tim Berners-Lee's notion of the read-write web, which is often used as a way of explaining what Web 2.0 means.
The first implementation of the web represents the Web 1.0, which, according to Berners-Lee, could be considered the "read-only web." In other words, the early web allowed us to search for information and read it. There was very little in the way of user interaction or content contribution. However, this is exactly what most website owners wanted: Their goal for a website was to establish an online presence and make their information available to anyone at any time. I like to call this "brick-and-mortar thinking applied to the web," and the web as a whole hasn't moved much beyond this stage yet.
Shopping carts are Web 1.0
Shopping cart applications, which most ecommerce website owners employ in some shape or form, basically fall under the category of Web 1.0. The overall goal is to present products to potential customers, much as a catalog or a brochure does — only, with a website, you can also provide a method for anyone in the world to purchase products. The web provided a vector for exposure, and removed the geographical restrictions associated with a brick-and-mortar business.
Currently, we are seeing the infancy of the Web 2.0, or the "read-write" web if we stick to Berners-Lee's method of describing it. The newly-introduced ability to contribute content and interact with other web users has dramatically changed the landscape of the web in a short time. It has even more potential that we have yet to see. For example, just look at YouTube and MySpace, which rely on user submissions, and the potenital becomes more clear. The Web 2.0 appears to be a welcome response to a demand by web users that they be more involved in what information is available to them.
Many views of Web 2.0
Now, it's important to realize that there are a staggering number of definitions of what constitutes a "Web 2.0 application." For example, the perception exists that just because a website is built using a certain technology (like Ruby on Rails), or because it employs Ajax in its interface, it is a Web 2.0 application. From the general, bird's-eye view we are taking, this is not the case; our definition simply requires that users be able to interact with one another or contribute content. Developers, for example, have a much more rigid definition of Web 2.0 than average web users, and this can lead to confusion.
This in turn leads us to the rumblings and mumblings we have begun to hear about Web 3.0, which seems to provide us with a guarantee that vague web-versioning nomenclature is here to stay. By extending Tim Berners-Lee's explanations, the Web 3.0 would be something akin to a "read-write-execute" web. However, this is difficult to envision in its abstract form, so let's take a look at two things I predict will form the basis of the Web 3.0 — semantic markup and web services.
Semantic markup refers to the communication gap between human web users and computerized applications. One of the largest organizational challenges of presenting information on the web is that web applications aren't able to provide context to data, and, therefore, can't really understand what is relevant and what is not. Through the use of some sort of semantic markup, or data interchange formats, data could be put in a form not only accessible to humans via natural language, but able to be understood and interpreted by software applications as well.
While it is still evolving, this notion — formatting data to be understood by software agents — leads to the "execute" portion of our definition, and provides a way to discuss web services.
Web 3.0
A web service is a software system designed to support computer-to-computer interaction over the Internet. Web services are not new and usually take the form of an Application Programming Interface (API). The popular photography-sharing website Flickr provides a web service whereby developers can programmatically interface with Flickr to search for images. Currently, thousands of web services are available. However, in the context of Web 3.0, they take center stage. By combining a semantic markup and web services, the Web 3.0 promises the potential for applications that can speak to each other directly, and for broader searches for information through simpler interfaces.
What's important to understand, I think, is that the nomenclature with which we describe these differing philosophies should not be taken too seriously. Just because a website does not employ Web 2.0 features does not make it obsolete. After all, a small ecommerce website trying to sell niche products may not have any business need for users to submit content or to be able to interact with each other.
Most importantly, you don't need to upgrade anything, get new software or anything like that. These are abstract ideas used to contemplate the challenges developers face on the web in addition to theories about how to address them.
SEMANTIC WEB
| The word semantic stands for the meaning of. The semantic of something is the meaning of something. The Semantic Web = a Web with a meaning. |
The Semantic Web is a web that is able to describe things in a way that computers can understand.
- The Beatles was a popular band from Liverpool.
- John Lennon was a member of the Beatles.
- "Hey Jude" was recorded by the Beatles.
Sentences like the ones above can be understood by people. But how can they be understood by computers?
Statements are built with syntax rules. The syntax of a language defines the rules for building the language statements. But how can syntax become semantic?
This is what the Semantic Web is all about. Describing things in a way that computers applications can understand it.
The Semantic Web is not about links between web pages.
The Semantic Web describes the relationships between things (like A is a part of B and Y is a member of Z) and the properties of things (like size, weight, age, and price)
The semantic web is an evolving extension of the World Wide Web in which web content can be expressed not only in natural language, but also in a form that can be read and used by software agents, thus permitting them to find, share and integrate information more easily. Using the semantic web will be similar to asking a personal assistant to help you accomplish something. You might say, “Find me all bilingual Porsche dealers within 200 miles that are open on Sunday, and add their sales staff contacts information to my address book. Also, let me know if any of their employees have published contacts within 2 degrees of separation from me.” This will be possible because all that information (business type, language proficiencies, location, contact information, etc.) will be available through the company’s Internet presence. And most importantly, this information will be easily processed and manipulated by any semantically-aware software agent. That’s web 3.0. People build applications that other people can interact with, companies build platforms that let people publish services by leveraging the associations between people or special content (e.g. FaceBook, My Yahoo!) [4], [5] Google Maps
innovations associated with "Web 3.0"
A. Web-based applications and desktops
Web 3.0 technologies, such as intelligent software that utilize semantic data, have been implemented and used on a small scale by multiple companies for the purpose of more efficient data manipulation. In recent years, however, there has been an increasing focus on bringing semantic web technologies to the general public.
B. Transforming the Web into a database
The first step towards a "Web 3.0" is the emergence of "The Data Web" as structured data records are published to the Web in reusable and remotely queryable formats, such as XML, RDF and microformats. The recent growth of SPARQL technology provides a standardized query language and API for searching across distributed RDF databases on the Web. The Data Web enables a new level of data integration and application interoperability, making data as openly accessible and linkable as Web pages. The Data Web is the first step on the path towards the full Semantic Web. In the Data Web phase, the focus is principally on making structured data available using RDF. The full Semantic Web stage will widen the scope such that both structured data and even what is traditionally thought of as unstructured or semi-structured content (such as Web pages, documents, etc.) will be widely available in RDF and OWL semantic formats.
C. An evolutionary path to artificial intelligence
Web 3.0 has also been used to describe an evolutionary path for the Web that leads to artificial intelligence that can reason about the Web in a quasi-human fashion.However, companies such as IBM and Google are implementing new technologies that are yielding surprising information such as making predictions of hit songs from mining information on college music Web sites. There is also debate over whether the driving force behind Web 3.0 will be intelligent systems, or whether intelligence will emerge in a more organic fashion, from systems of intelligent people, such as via collaborative filtering services like del.icio.us, Flickr and Digg that extract meaning and order from the existing Web and how people interact with it.
D. The realization of the Semantic Web
Related to the artificial intelligence direction, Web 3.0 could be the realization and extension of the Semantic web concept. Academic research is being conducted to develop software for reasoning, based on description logic and intelligent agents. Such applications can perform logical reasoning operations using sets of rules that express logical relationships between concepts and data on the Web. Sramana Mitra differs on the viewpoint that Semantic Web would be the essence of the next generation of the Internet and proposes a formula to encapsulate Web 3.0. Web 3.0 has also been linked to a possible convergence of Service-oriented architecture and the Semantic web.
E. Evolution towards 3D
Another possible path for Web 3.0 is towards the 3 dimensional vision championed by the Web3D Consortium. This would involve the Web transforming into a series of 3D spaces, taking the concept realized by Second Life further. This could open up new ways to connect and collaborate using 3D shared spaces. Web 3.0 as an "Executable" Web Abstraction Layer Where Web 1.0 was a "read-only" web, with content being produced by in large by the organizations backing any given site, and Web 2.0 was an extension into the "read-write" web that engaged users in an active role, Web 3.0 could extend this one step further by allowing people to modify the site itself. With the still exponential growth of computer power, it is not inconceivable that the next generation of sites will be equipped with the resources to
E. Proposed expanded definition
Nova Spivack defines Web 3.0 as the third decade of the Web (2010–2020) during which he suggests several major complementary technology trends will reach new levels of maturity simultaneously including:
1. Transformation of the Web from a network of separately soiled applications and content repositories to a more seamless and interoperable whole.
2. Ubiquitous connectivity, broadband adoption, mobile Internet access and mobile devices;
3. Network computing, software-as-a-service business models, Web services interoperability, distributed computing, grid computing and cloud computing;
4. Open technologies, open APIs and protocols, open data formats, open-source software platforms and open data (e.g. Creative Commons, Open Data License);
5. Open identity, OpenID, open reputation, roaming portable identity and personal data;
6. The intelligent web, Semantic Web technologies such as RDF, OWL, SWRL, SPARQL, GRDDL, semantic application platforms, and statement-based datastores;
7. Distributed databases, the "World Wide Database" (enabled by Semantic Web technologies); and Intelligent applications, natural language processing, machine learning, machine reasoning, and autonomous agents.
Tomorrow's Web, Today
In some respects, Web 3.0 is nothing more than a parlor game. Ideas tossed out here and there. But at the very least, these ideas have roots in current trends. Many companies, from HP and Yahoo! to Radar Networks, are adopting official Semantic Web standards. Polar Rose and Ojos are improving image search. Google and Microsoft are moving toward 3D. No one can predict what Web 3.0 will look like. But one thing's for sure: It'll happen.
Future invasion of Web 3.0
What will Web 3.0 look like? Who knows? But here are a few possibilities.
A. The Semantic Web
A Web where machines can read sites as easily as humans read them (almost). You ask your machine to check your schedule against the schedules of all the dentists and doctors within a 10-mile radius—and it obeys.
B. The 3D Web
A Web you can walk through. Without leaving your desk, you can go house hunting across town or take a tour of Europe. Or you can walk through a Second Life–style virtual world, surfing for data and interacting with others in 3D.
C. The Media-Centric Web
A Web where you can find media using other media—not just keywords. You supply, say, a photo of your favorite painting and your search engines turn up hundreds of similar paintings.
D. The Pervasive Web
A Web that's everywhere. On your PC. On your cell phone. On your clothes and jewelry. Spread throughout your home and office. Even your bedroom windows are online, checking the weather, so they know when to open and close.
what if, in the future
In the web 2.0 generation, web sites began to do amazing things to break through the limitations of their underlying protocol and markup language (http and HTML, respectively). In a way, this would be like “Web 2.0 meets massively multiplayer online gaming”. I don’t like the word gaming here as it suggests something that is only for entertainment, and ultimately, inconsequential. Rather, I believe that true value and immediate person-to-person interaction will be possible, be it on a commercial, scientific, entertainment, or personal level. Our own contribution to the growing number of new web 2.x - or shall we dare call it web 3.0 - applications is TheBroth, The Global Mosaic. This is a web site where you can collaborate in real time with other users from around the world, dragging tiles to create mosaic-like artworks with other users in the room. It fulfills the paradigm described in this article, namely web 2.0 with all the trimmings, user generated content, blogs, a social networking system, chat, forum, sharing, rating, commenting, you name it but it adds another dimension by being LIVE (as seen )on the live player map, active rooms page, site map [3]. thing of the past, so much so that in the web 3.0 era, by means of evolution and the pressure to adapt, only quality sites that really are user-centric and user-friendly will prevail. One can only hope.[3]
EXAMPLES OF WEB3
Maps:
Google street map made news early this year with its controversial drive-by views of people’s front doors and people themselves. But, other innovative mappers also are emerging. Openstreetmap.org is about people mapping everything worldwide from great hiking routes to ski runs or and wine tours. Gatt describes it as a kind of wiki of special interest maps.
Personal organizers:
There’s no shortage of web services aimed at helping consumers organize their lives. But however digital their way of living, a lot of consumers still print out paper when they travel, particularly on business. Tripit.com offers an alternative to the travel paper trail by being a ‘personal, full-service travel assistant.’ It compiles itineraries, from transportation to dinner dates, and adds in weather reports, suggested local attractions and more. It’s worth a glance if you travel and have a busy agenda and useful for personal travel too
CONCLUSION
We don’t know yet whether there will be another noticeable paradigm shift that yet again will give a new moniker to a new type of web site. Maybe from now on the web will continue to develop in a rather fluid manner and we may not see another discrete change as seen with what we now, in hindsight, label web 2.0. What we do know is that more and more users come to the internet, and with ADSL2+ and cable more and more users have high speed internet access that is now fast enough to make online video a serious threat to TV ratings. New internet users that are now coming to the web, uninfluenced by the web-that-was, expect services to be timely, uninterrupted, error free, and above all, intuitive to use, with a friendly and inviting look that makes the term “user friendly website” a pleonasm,
References
[1] http://www.pcmag.com/ article2/0,1759,2102852,00.asp
[2] http://www.information-nline.com/Web+3.0.127.node
[3] http://www.thebroth.com/blog/194/web-20-massively-multiplayer-web-30
[4] http://www.awadallah.com/blog/2007/08/25/define-web-30-web-20-web-10/
[5] http://dmiessler.com/blog/the-difference-between-web-10-20-and-30
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