In the beginning, there was…
Businesses began to see the benefit of having a website to present information to customers. Information was static; the website owner could present information however they wanted. Soon, as Internet users, we had more information than we needed at our fingertips. We became more discerning. If we were researching a product to buy, we expected to see the real story, not just the information company marketers thought we should have. We wanted to know what other people thought of it. And if we saw a great website, or had bad service, we wanted to share that.
Along came…
Advances in technology mean the Internet is now an interactive space. Social networking and data sharing technologies are only part of the picture though – Web 2.0 isn’t defined by the technology so much as the way we use the technology. Online, we’ve undergone a cultural shift.
Image via Flickr by SalFalco
No longer are we satisfied with being served up information; we want to interact with that information – we read and write reviews, connect with friends and make new connections, both professional and personal. We share anything we find interesting and relevant, be it good or bad. If we have an opinion, we can climb onto a soapbox in the comfort of our own home.
Image via Flickr by Steve Rhodes
Online, our potential audience is larger than the traditional soapbox audience “passers-by in the town I live in” so the chances are someone will hear what we have to say. Our influence could be far-reaching if the topic goes viral, or if we are, or have in our network, social influencers with many connections. Businesses and public servants consequently must pay attention to our comments.
Open data is now a common phrase with the public sector actively on board – see the NZ government’s Open Government Data and Information Reuse Programme.
Again, technology enables this – information can be taken from one source, repurposed and presented on another platform, generally with the intent of making it more relevant and accessible to a wider range of people. This combination of data and technology is often called a “mashup”.
So many of our information sources, business transactions and even our social interactions are online now it’s hard to comprehend how isolated we’d feel if there were suddenly no way to access the internet.
What next?
It is fair to say our virtual and physical worlds are beginning to converge. Theories vary on what form web 3.0 will take. Concepts like the semantic web, or web of data, where the focus becomes more on available data than web pages, seem feasible.
Image via Flickr by semanticwebcompany
With advances in technology, and the corresponding Web 2.0 culture of sharing, both formally and informally, that has evolved, we have the data and the technology to present that data in ever-increasingly more sophisticated ways. If those ways become more standardised due to the publishing languages used, machines become more able to do some of the work in finding targeted and relevant content for users.
The MindGrub presentation Emerging Web 3.0 Technologies You Need To Know on Slideshare says that with Web 3.0 “Information is searched for, filtered, personalised and delivered to end users based on preferences, biofeedback and location.
Image vie Flickr by The|G|TM
Sound far-fetched? Much of this technology exists or is in development. Think of the way Google uses targeted ads. For those with the vision, the technology is available in many content management systems to build a website that “learns” its users, so the next time you visit the website, you see different content surfaced than the person sitting beside you, whose interest in the same website has a different purpose.
In an online article by John Spivak, Web 3.0, The Third Generation Web is Coming, Spivak says that the innovations, improvements and upgrades that have been happening for some time will result in the Web transforming “from a network of separately siloed applications and content repositories to a more seamless and interoperable whole”.
His conclusion, that “Web 3.0 will be more connected, open, and intelligent, with semantic Web technologies, distributed databases, natural language processing, machine learning, machine reasoning, and autonomous agents” doesn’t seem beyond reach.
Already there are some very Web 3.0ish examples of technology in existence, from internet television to location-based services. Google Glass is definitely what I’d call a convergence between the virtual and physical worlds.
Then there’s apps, which are continually evolving. I was going to say there’s an app for practically everything but making your coffee…then a very quick Google search revealed that actually, there’s an app for that too. Yes. Really.
Image via Flickr by caseorganic
Web 3.0 is coming? I suggest that not only is it knocking on the front door, it will soon be kicking back on the couch with the aforementioned cup of coffee.
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