“Web 3.0? But we’re still getting our heads around Web 2.0!”

Sure, but technology and the internet waits for no man.

Web 3.0 describes the evolutionary stage of the Web that follows Web 2.0. and was coined by John Markoff of the New York Times in 2006, referring to a supposed third generation of Internet-based services that make up what might be called ‘the intelligent Web’ - such as those using semantic web, microformats, natural language search, data-mining, machine learning, recommendation agents, and artificial intelligence technologies - which emphasize system-facilitated understanding of information in order to provide a more productive and intuitive user experience.

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:

• transformation of the Web from a network of separately siloed applications and content repositories to a more seamless and interoperable whole.
• ubiquitous connectivity, broadband adoption, mobile Internet access and mobile devices
• network computing, software-as-a-service business models, Web services interoperability, distributed computing, grid computing and cloud computing;
• open technologies, open APIs and protocols, open data formats, open-source software platforms and open data (e.g. Creative Commons, Open Data License);
• open identity, OpenID, open reputation, roaming portable identity and personal data;
• the intelligent web, Semantic Web technologies such as RDF, OWL, SWRL, SPARQL, GRDDL, semantic application platforms, and statement-based datastores;
• distributed databases, the “World Wide Database” (enabled by Semantic Web technologies); and
• intelligent applications, natural language processing, machine learning, machine reasoning, autonomous agents.

So, in a nutshell, what will Web 3.0 mean to the average user?
First, we simply have to assume universal adoption of broadband to enable delivery (sounds easy if you say it fast ..).  Once this is in place, my belief is that the online experience will become much more personalized when it comes to content. There is no doubt that we will see emerging technology dramatically change our interaction with the web at a base level.

For example Artificial Intelligence systems in development will soon have the capability to provide a “virtual” online assistant, providing human-machine interaction at far greater levels than ever before and the new generation of ‘3D’ sites will be similarly enhancing gaming and related environments like “Second Life”.

At the moment, Web 2.0 allows for collaboration, discussion, and in most cases distribution; however the user still has to put effort into tracking down their areas of interest and has to actively pursue the content whether it be via groups, forums Feeds etc.

Web 3.0 promises a world where each user’s profile, preferences, likes, dislikes, wants and needs are so widely available via open data streams (for some, a scary thought in itself) that when surfing the ‘net, you will no longer just see “a page” created for the masses, but will receive specifically delivered content, personalized for you at a granular or component level.
Needless to say, the implications of Web 3.0 for the development of the CMS industry worldwide is huge.

Posted by Dunken Francis - Web Consultant Author-it Software Corporation (with thanks to Wikipedia for Nova Spivack references)