This is my first post in a new blog series entitled “the future of content”. The blog series will feature posts on determining where media will be headed in the digital age and the impact it will/may have on ethnic minorities. I don’t know a lot (or anything lol) about Web 3.0 but this will be an attempt to understand it !
According to the man who, along with Robert Caillau, created in the world wide web in 1989, Tim Berners-Lee, he argues that Web 3.0 may be comprised of what will/may be a semantic web.
The semantic web is a vision of information that is understandable by computers, so that they can perform more of the tedious work involved in finding, sharing and combining information on the web.
From what I gather, this semantic web is an effort to make the Web wholly efficient and almost like a locomotive that does not need manual labour to be created. It sounds so complex and yet very interesting.
Web 2.0 vs Web 3.0: Most people agree that Web 2.0 was about people creating their own types of media and sharing. It was, as this site puts it, about “community and collaboration” in relation to Flickr. Many others also argue that 2.0 was a marketing tool. One commenter on this technology site defined Web 3.0 as “Web 3.0 will be about decommoditization. Like everything else bleeding edge, we won’t recognize it until it happens.”
I think there is a lot of truth in this statement that we won’t know what it is until it happens. But one thing is clear, blogs as we know them today as being user-generated and about readers/bloggers will change. But I would argue that the day of the blogs has already changed completely. What will blogs be like in the age of Web 3.0, which will supposedly be from the year 2010 – 2020 ? Will blogs be completely forgotten in the semantic web ?
According to Berners-Lee, A Semantic Web agent could be programmed to do almost anything, from automatically booking your next vacation to researching a term paper.
From this perspective, web 3.0 seems to be hinting at the complete ‘robotisation’ of the Web into something self-sufficient to the point where it does not need the human to move. This is a revolutionary idea but one that will essentially challenged the whole “create your own” ethos of 2.0.
Conclusion: Web 3.0 sounds like one of those things that is intangible @ the moment but will probably make more sense when it is developed in the future. I think it will only strengthen how we dissect blogs, news etc.
4 Comments
08/05/2008 at 19:06
hello Aulelia
i love this post , i really wanted to comment , but i could not get the jist of ” semantic “… So Robert , thank you !!! i understand now .. This is good and bad to me , why it seems very invasive possibly encroaching on our basic human rights of free speech . I am sure this is also away to control what gets listed and what doesn’t…
I love the web obviously, since i have 4 computers on my way to a fifth , but i have noticed that a lot of people/ young poeple are dumbed down by the web, points being :
* if the right information , is distorted or missing it becomes dangerous .. wrong information be it literally wrong or a form of brainwashing
*crowd thought, people acting out thier fantasies . If you believe in mental abuse , there is a sort of mental abuse happening now on the web.. Documnented cases of kids getting beat up over myspace pages. or people being run off of thier blogs because they start recieving threats.
The web is like the wild west , a newly formed american , the question i would like answered is who are the indians , who are the slaves…
Everyday , some new intangible phenomena happens on the web , no one can control it , corporations are getting antsy … murdoch owns myspace , bill gates owns facebook, that saids a lot .
Isp’s are now reneging on service benefits , ie.
* “faster download speeds” , forget it now u have to buy boost packages …
*most don’t support wireless. they think u should pay for each connection. they will even ask u how many computers you have in your home ???? why . different people have different needs . knowing how many computers somebody has is not going to tell you anything.
* Vista block tcp connections .@ this point i don’t know if it is vista , or the isp .
* Isp’s sometimes filter/ block news feeds.. For what , ??? because most isps also offer tv cable services??
* The port 25 blocking , is insane !
The way I see , It’s becoming a war for information , with the some ideas appearing to benefit us , but the actual modus operandi in the hands of those who control us !
. Perhaps this point is to obtuse
08/05/2008 at 06:47
I build software for a living. Several years ago I attended a presentation by another software company and the presenter used an acronym that I wasn’t entirely familiar with. So I asked him what it meant. He actually didn’t know.
Such is my suspicion when people start using esoteric words to describe a concept. About a month ago I received an invitation to the Beta version of what is supposed to be the primary attempt at a Web 3.0 website: http://Twine.com This precipitated me to read up extensively on the subject.
My first conclusion is that it’s really not that difficult to understand. My second is to try to avoid using the word “semantic” to describe it, for nobody really understands what that word means!
In essence, Web 3.0 simply means that the content of every website will be internally stored in such a way as to make it much more searchable, like a giant database. Whereas right now Google and such try to figure out what a page “means” by indexing all the words and phrases on it. But they don’t actually understand what the page is about.
For example, imagine two web pages. The first had these sentences on it: “When I walked into the house I saw several pictures of dogs but never did I meet an actual dog. Only later did I learn that the owner loved dogs but was allergic so couldn’t keep any himself.”
And the second had this sentence: “When I walked into the house, I was immediately greeted by several dogs.”
Now, try to create a search in Google that was equivalent to this sentence: “Find for me the homes of all people you can who own dogs.” Both of the aforementioned web pages would be returned. In fact, the first would probably be returned much higher because “dog” is referred to 3 times. But yet there are no dogs in that house.
Web 3.0 tries to interpret each sentence and store it internally in a way that a computer will understand and be able to search.
07/05/2008 at 16:27
thanks for the lesson
06/05/2008 at 17:15
Oh nooooooooooooooooooo; I’m still tryna figure out what Web 2.0 is.
LOL.