Every Time you say Web 3.0 a Start-up Dies
March 28th, 2007by Sean Gorman
A while back Anthony Townsend sent me a funny blog link which had him wearing a t-shirt that said "Every time you say Web 3.0 a start up dies :("
This quickly became a running joke in the office since we had a Web 4.0 milestone running in Trac for a while. So we got a big kick out of a call a few days ago where someone referred to what we were doing as Web 3.0. The last time I'd really read anything on Web 3.0 was when the NYT wrote an article about it that bloggers had a bit of a field day with.
I figured I would take another look into it since we'd been labeled. Going to the Web 2.0 well Wikipedia kicks up:
"Web 3.0 is a term that has been coined to describe the evolution of Web usage and interaction that includes transforming the Web into a database, a move towards making content accessible by multiple non-browser applications, the leveraging of artificial intelligence technologies and the Semantic web and three dimensional interaction and collaboration."
Lots of articles wax poetic on the issue and conflate it with the Semantic Web as in the Wikipedia definition. The Semantic Web has been around since 1999 or so and is most often associated with the thoughts of Tim Berners Lee. I'd done some research on semantic kind of things back in school and to be honest was put off by the general over complexity of it. Any time that core words to describe your work include things like semantics, ontology, lexicon etc. you are not exactly dabbling in the world of simplicity. Having spent a good chunk of my life in academia I can safely say we do an awesome job of taking simple concepts and making it so that 99% of world has no idea what we are talking about. Yes - post modernists - I'm talking about you.
My take is that simplicity forms the roots of what has made Web 2.0 successful. The API's and defacto standards that have really taken off have the common theme of being mind numbingly simple. So, there seems to be a bit of a disconnect with Web 3.0 and conflating it with the 8 years of academic and standards work that have gone with the semantic web, which have created some very complicated white papers and manifestations.
The irony with getting labeled Web 3.0 is that what we were describing, at the time, was our attempt to simplify the world of geospatial data so that it could be consumable by non-technical people. To add to the irony there is a whole science of applying semantic web concepts to geospatial data and it is definitely not simple. Traditionally geospatial data comes in a variety of shapes and sizes - point, polygons, polylines, raster formats (satelite imagery, heat maps) etc. Part of the art to geographic science is knowing what geometries to use when - cenus tracts, census blocks, counties, zip codes etc. While this frame of thought matches up well with data formats it does not match up well with the way most people think. People think about locations and attributes or contexts about that location. I live in the Clarendon neighborhood and I associate contexts with that neighborhood like restaurants, parking, crime, housing prices, music, congestion etc. The data that describes those attributes could be a dozen different geometries, but as a user I don't really care. I care about getting an answer to my question in the context of the location I care about - in this case Clarendon. We've been working on an architecture that will provide such a simplification and that along with the various other aspects we've been tying in is what created, at least one, Web 3.0 label. Whether what we are doing is Web 3.0 or not I really have no clue - we are hoping it solves a problem in a simple way for a user. At the end of the day that is what I think will be successful whether you label it 2.0, 3.0 or even, ack, 4.0. What is created needs to be easy and simple not only for the users but for the developers implementing it. While the next evolution will likely solve some of the problems targeted by the semantic web I think the actually technological path will be something far simpler than what is currently being touted.
***All ideas about the new architecture and contexts came from Mookie - a.k.a. Pramakta Kumar one of our lead developers. I simply regurgitate them in some semblance of an idea. The F1 platform for it all is a Chris Ingrassia creation TM.
This quickly became a running joke in the office since we had a Web 4.0 milestone running in Trac for a while. So we got a big kick out of a call a few days ago where someone referred to what we were doing as Web 3.0. The last time I'd really read anything on Web 3.0 was when the NYT wrote an article about it that bloggers had a bit of a field day with.
I figured I would take another look into it since we'd been labeled. Going to the Web 2.0 well Wikipedia kicks up:
"Web 3.0 is a term that has been coined to describe the evolution of Web usage and interaction that includes transforming the Web into a database, a move towards making content accessible by multiple non-browser applications, the leveraging of artificial intelligence technologies and the Semantic web and three dimensional interaction and collaboration."
Lots of articles wax poetic on the issue and conflate it with the Semantic Web as in the Wikipedia definition. The Semantic Web has been around since 1999 or so and is most often associated with the thoughts of Tim Berners Lee. I'd done some research on semantic kind of things back in school and to be honest was put off by the general over complexity of it. Any time that core words to describe your work include things like semantics, ontology, lexicon etc. you are not exactly dabbling in the world of simplicity. Having spent a good chunk of my life in academia I can safely say we do an awesome job of taking simple concepts and making it so that 99% of world has no idea what we are talking about. Yes - post modernists - I'm talking about you.
My take is that simplicity forms the roots of what has made Web 2.0 successful. The API's and defacto standards that have really taken off have the common theme of being mind numbingly simple. So, there seems to be a bit of a disconnect with Web 3.0 and conflating it with the 8 years of academic and standards work that have gone with the semantic web, which have created some very complicated white papers and manifestations.
The irony with getting labeled Web 3.0 is that what we were describing, at the time, was our attempt to simplify the world of geospatial data so that it could be consumable by non-technical people. To add to the irony there is a whole science of applying semantic web concepts to geospatial data and it is definitely not simple. Traditionally geospatial data comes in a variety of shapes and sizes - point, polygons, polylines, raster formats (satelite imagery, heat maps) etc. Part of the art to geographic science is knowing what geometries to use when - cenus tracts, census blocks, counties, zip codes etc. While this frame of thought matches up well with data formats it does not match up well with the way most people think. People think about locations and attributes or contexts about that location. I live in the Clarendon neighborhood and I associate contexts with that neighborhood like restaurants, parking, crime, housing prices, music, congestion etc. The data that describes those attributes could be a dozen different geometries, but as a user I don't really care. I care about getting an answer to my question in the context of the location I care about - in this case Clarendon. We've been working on an architecture that will provide such a simplification and that along with the various other aspects we've been tying in is what created, at least one, Web 3.0 label. Whether what we are doing is Web 3.0 or not I really have no clue - we are hoping it solves a problem in a simple way for a user. At the end of the day that is what I think will be successful whether you label it 2.0, 3.0 or even, ack, 4.0. What is created needs to be easy and simple not only for the users but for the developers implementing it. While the next evolution will likely solve some of the problems targeted by the semantic web I think the actually technological path will be something far simpler than what is currently being touted.
***All ideas about the new architecture and contexts came from Mookie - a.k.a. Pramakta Kumar one of our lead developers. I simply regurgitate them in some semblance of an idea. The F1 platform for it all is a Chris Ingrassia creation TM.Popularity: 12% [?]
March 28th, 2007 at 3:25 pm
Start-ups die every day! I wouldn’t worry about it.
I personally don’t see v3.0 of the web as much different than v2.0. The paradigm shift has already taken place, and semantic information won’t make much different to the mix. It’ll just make 2.0 better.
Feeds 2.0 uses the kind of technology that defines 3.0: AI, text-mining, pattern recognition and filtering… Yet it’s not going to do much more than make 2.0 slightly better for the user without such a radical change as the switch from 1.0.
alexjc
March 28th, 2007 at 3:43 pm
Web 3.0 is pure spin. As a marketing person, I can’t beleive the things people come up with (unless it’s me, of course). Similar types of boasts are being made towards so-called “Green Initiatives.”
Soon the Federal Trade Commission will have a certificiation for 2.0 and 3.0… Just kidding, but maybe needed?
GL
April 3rd, 2007 at 7:12 pm
Get your own Web 3.0 shirt (shown above) here - http://www.cafepress.com/mikelove1
April 21st, 2007 at 2:10 am
I get the feeling there is a community that always wants to be at some leading edge of newness? Web 2.0 is getting staid and established, maybe too established? So time to break away.
November 7th, 2007 at 1:11 am
[…] We had a hard enough time understanding 2.0 (the movement from static to truly social technology and content), having to explain this horrific cliche to the masses. Then once everyone started messaging anything new as 2.0 it lost its value (image from F1 blog). […]
February 16th, 2008 at 8:10 pm
hmmm
The 1st web 3.0 thing will be any location (like Rss) to various readers will be able to be added to mapquest, MyTravelLinks, MyShopping etc. This is simple and going to happen. Most of the examples Berners-Lee gives could be solved by this basic and I mean basic functionality. The next time anyone is reading Budget Travel or this blog and see a location for something they want to do on my next trip they should be able to add it.