Web 3.0? What The Heck Is That?

For a good period of time, there was noticeable discontent over the increasing use of the term ‘Web 2.0’ by bloggers, and, eventually, full-fledged journalists. To a sizable portion of Web users, the label had no real meaning whatsoever. They thought it was simply a name conjured for use as a marketing tool. A new spin devoid of meaning. It aggravated. It caused a ruckus on some occasions. And then, almost at once, everyone began to accept it en masse.

Now, there’s the phrase ‘Web 3.0’ we have to contend with. This one, I must say, I’m not very bullish about.

The reason I accepted ‘Web 2.0’ several years ago as a phrase that had (and still does have) some measure of importance is because it signified the start of a new era on the Web, one that came about shortly after high-speed broadband access emerged as a viable solution for Average Joe’s connectivity needs. The bigger tubes that made up our respective broadband infrastructures brought about bigger ideas - and a whole lot more money to make those big ideas happen as well. Those big ideas included Web apps, user-generated media, genuinely viewable video streams, and the simple yet very powerful concept-turned-phenomenon that is social networking on the Web. In short, Web 2.0 is really just the newest step on the evolutionary line of the Internet.

The term ‘Web 3.0’, on the other hand, is hard to grapple with. I want to give it a fair shake, just as I did with ‘Web 2.0’, but my logic process just can’t seem to accept it. Perhaps the block is a result of my reading a statement about this very subject by a Mr Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, at the Seoul Digital Forum this year. He said, funnily enough, that Web 2.0 was only a marketing term for AJAX (the cohesion of JavaScript and XML), and that Web 3.0 would be reached when applications (presumably based online) would be “pieced together” to work with any device, be very customizable, and likely tap the ethos of the viral market to establish user bases.

To which I think we all wish to say: Huh?

Schmidt’s explanation, in a nutshell, is why I find it much too early to make any serious attempts at defining something that has not yet come to be. As I’ve reiterated many times before, we are only now achieving things we’ve wished to have for a decade, maybe even longer. In 1997, we were still far from the point at which we could buy anything and everything via our browsers. We could buy a lot of stuff back then, but not everything. Nor were we close to understanding what it would really be like to interact with websites as we did with everyday desktop-based applications. And we’ve years before we see seriously impressive code being produced for remote use as featureful replacements for current utilities operating on our own personal machines.

Mind you, those creations, when they in fact do come about, will of course fit well within the parameters of Web 2.0.

If I were to venture a guess at what the term Web 3.0 will some day exemplify, it would be this: A world of Web based software that operates much like native apps on our PCs do today, making it possible for people to do away with portable hard disks and still get hold of their information anywhere. Wireless networks will of course be far more widespread to allow users to maintain the sense of security they currently maintain. And whether this prediction involves a major change in the land of operating systems is really for future developments to decide.

Granted, it looks today like we’re a long, long way from Web 3.0. So let’s shelve the term for now and focus on what we’ve got presently: Web 2.0. There’s still a whole lot left to do before we begin a push into a new era.