Even as people are still getting to grips with  Web 2.0 (Social Media) and why it is so important for internet marketing,  we need to consider what the next installment of the ever evolving social web might have in store for us.

Even though it is already somewhat old news, business owners need to understand what Web 3.0 will entail.  

Here are our thoughts on the subject together with some information about Web 3.0.

Direct from Tim O’Reilly – The man who coined the term Web 2.0:

“Web 3.0, in my opinion is best defined as the third-decade of the Web (2010 – 2020), during which time several key technologies will become widely used. Chief among them will be RDF and the technologies of the emerging Semantic Web. While Web 3.0 is not synonymous with the Semantic Web (there will be several other important technology shifts in that period), it will be largely characterized by semantics in general”.

Web 3.0 is an era in which we will see a significant upgrade to the back-end (admin section) of the Web, after a decade of focus on the front-end (Web 2.0 has mainly been about AJAX, tagging, and other front-end user-experience innovations.)

Evolution or Revolution?

Changes online are rarely ‘revolutionary’- usually they are ‘evolutionary’. Past trends which emerged under Web 2.0 will continue  and new technologies will become available at an even faster rate.

With web 3.0, what is the vision?

 Information will become easier to access with the “Semantic web” – now in development. Online software agents will share, find and integrate information for searches – based entirely on user profiles i.e. based on their previous search behaviour.

Data will also become far more freely available from multiple information sources, simultaneously and applications will speak to each other directly. These are aimed at providing a broader search experience for information. Web 2.0 (Social Media) has already adopted this and has evolved significantly over the past couple of years.

Semantic search

What is ‘Semantic Search?  We will try and give you an example  – Semantic Search will allow you to find ingredients for a recipe online and then locate the closest store to where you are that carries all of those ingredients!  Another example would be the ability for you look at all the  available fashions, from multiple stores, just in your size. How good is that?

Other “visions” of Web 3.0 will all include a massive increase in bandwidth – available to you all the time. This would make streaming video available, all the time. No more watching a spinning circle waiting for “rendering video”…. Will this new Web 3.0 era be called the video web?

Web 3.0 has already started – just look at all the Google updates-  but we strongly believe that Blogging and Social Networking will continue to grow and remain important to both consumers and business marketing. Web 3.0 will just bring information in a faster more interactive and focused way.

In our view, Web 3.0 is an extension of Web 2.0 but designed to get information faster to the person searching for it.  

99% of online searches start with a question – imagine what it could do for your business if you could give all the answers right there and then?

What is your take on Web 3.0?  Please leave a comment below.

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