Web 1.0 vs Web 2.0 vs Web 3.0 – A bird’s eye on the evolution and definition

Do you know the answer to the next simple question?

“What do you know about web 2.0 technology?”

What’s so interesting about this video, is the simple fact that none of these so called digital natives are familiar with the term web 2.0. Although they never had a life without technology, they just don’t know how to describe “it”. So to be shure I’ve rounded up some basics on the evolution of the web.

Web 0.0 – Developping the internet

Web 1.0 – The shopping carts & static web

The Internet before 1999, experts call it Read-Only era. The average internet user’s role was limited only to reading the information presented to him. The best examples are millions of static websites which mushroomed during the.com boom. There was no active communication or information flow from consumer or the information to producer of the information

According to Berners-Lee the first implementation of the web, representing the Web 1.0, could be considered as 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. [...]

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. [...]

Web 2.0 – The writing and participating web

The lack of active interaction of common users with the web lead to the birth of Web 2.0. The year 1999 marked the beginning of a Read-Write-Publish era with notable contributions from LiveJournal (Launched in April, 1999) and Blogger (Launched in August, 1999). Now even a non-technical user can actively interact & contribute to the web using different blog platforms. If we stick to Berners-Lee’s method of describing it, [...] the Web 2.0, or the “read-write” web has the [...] ability to contribute content and interact with other web users. This interaction and contribution has dramatically changed the landscape of the web [...]. It has even more potential that we have yet to see. [...] The Web 2.0 appears to be a welcome response to a demand by web users that they are more involved in what information is available to them.

This era empowered the common user with a few new concepts viz. Blog, Social-Media & Video-Streaming. Publishing your content is only a few clicks away! Few remarkable developments of Web 2.0 are Twitter, YouTube, eZineArticles, Flickr and Facebook.

There are many different views of Web 2.0 depending on who you talk to.

[...] Developers,[...], have a much more rigid definition of Web 2.0 than average web users, and this can lead to confusion [but I don't go into this discussion.]

Web 3.0 – The semantic executing web

This in turn leads us to the rumblings and mumblings we have begun to hear about Web 3.0[...]. 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 [...]that 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. [..]While it is still evolving, this notion of formatting data to be understood by software agents leads to the “execute” portion of our definition, and provides a way to discuss web service.

A web service is a software system designed to support computer-to-computer interaction over the Internet. [...]. 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 importantto understand[...], is that the nomenclature with which we describe [...] 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. [...]

Web 3.0 – how, why and when. Kate Ray has made a good documentary on web 3.0, and explains realy why we need a semantic web and what the semantic web is all about.
Are we there yet??

It seems we had everything we had wished for in Web 2.0, but it is way behind when it comes to intelligence. Perhaps a six year old child has a better analytical abilities than the existing search technologies! Keyword based search of web 2.0 resulted in an information overload. The following attributes are going to be a part of Web 3.0: Contextual Search

• Tailor made Search
• Personalized Search
• Evolution of 3D Web
• Deductive Reasoning

Because we aren’t there yet, developers and users have come up with a ‘cheap’ intermediate way of contexualizing the search problem. You can read about it in my blog post: Can Google handle the Spam pressure?

The Next Web – Open en Linked Web

Tim Berners-Lee gave an inspired TED talk in 2009 on this new Open en Linked Web

Sources:

• E-zine articles – http://ezinearticles.com/?What-is-the-Semantic-Web?&id=3665455 by Amy Armitage (2010)
• pratical e-commerce - http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/464-Basic-Definitions-Web-1-0-Web-2-0-Web-3-0 by Brian Getting (April 2007)
• ECP-EPN – Dutch ICT think tank – http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=bsNcjya56v8 by David from EPN ( September 2008)
• Web 3.0 on Vimeo by Kate Ray (May 2010)
• TED – Tim Berners-Lee – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OM6XIICm_qo
• Judi O’Connel – http://www.slideshare.net/heyjudeonline/the-next-big-thing-is-web-30-catch-it-if-you-can