Web 3.0, the next generation Internet

Web 3.0 will succeed Web 2.0, or the social web. As things stand, the web is geared for social interaction and bringing people together - just think of the massive growth of social networking sites like Twitter and Mebo and consider that more people are getting their news from Facebook than Google. Web 1.0, on the other hand, was an information storage medium and nothing more.

Web 3.0 is known as the Semantic Web (semantics is the science of meaning and in relation to Web 3.0 refers to the way the Internet will understand the meaning of things we type into it). At the moment, when we perform a search we are basically typing in a word or phrase that appears somewhere on the Internet: we are searching based on expected results. For example, if we type in ‘tasty pizza recipes’ we are searching for a site that contains the term ‘tasty pizza recipes’. With the Semantic Web, we will type in ‘what are some tasty pizza recipes?’ Web 3.0 will respond by probably searching for pizza recipes, analysing the popularity of certain pizza recipes, analysing comments and social media links, inferring what ingredients make a tasty pizza and analysing your own searching trends to deliver you a customised result. In short, the semantic web will be able to understand the information on the Internet rather than just index it. The tedious process of finding, combining and organising information on the Internet will all be done by computers.

Social bookmarking sites like Delicious, StumbleUpon and Digg are better than search engines like Google because content has been ‘indexed’ or tagged by humans who understand the content while, search algorithms often struggle with recognising the difference between quality and spam. For example, a search engine cannot distinguish between the car and the horse when you search for the term ‘Mustang’. With Web 3.0, search engines will be able to finally understand what humans (and not robots) like the best thanks to advances in artificial intelligence.

Web 3.0 will not just be about the Semantic Web. Another important element could be virtual worlds where people interact and shop, visit libraries, drive virtual cars and so forth (sort of like Surrogates). Although this may seem a bit far-fetched at the moment it really isn’t. Second Life is pioneering a very realistic virtual world that is likely to play a big part in Web 3.0. But this is another topic for another day. Other features of Web 3.0 will be 3D graphics and vastly improved infrastructure to allow people to download and watch blue-ray movies with ease.

It’s hard to say exactly when Web 3.0 will arrive, since it took a good ten years to move from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0. Tim Berners-Lee, the original founder of the Internet, began talking about the Semantic Web in 1999. We can say that many elements of the Semantic Web are here already, such as the artificial intelligence that will make it all happen. At the moment, Google and Facebook are showing early Web 3.0 traits as Google analyses your search patterns and location to deliver targeted adverts. Facebook does a similar thing by analysing all the information on your profile. And Google is mashing up its maps with business and entertainment locations to make finding things easier. Most experts (such as Nova Spivack) agree that it will arrive around 2015. So watch this space.