Will There Be A Web 3.0?

For reasons not even known to me I got interested in Web 3.0. Mind you, I haven’t even heard of 3.0 but I figured since I now sort of understand what Web 2.0 is, a 3 must becoming.

My hunch was right but before I did much checking I thought I would try and figure out what Web 3.0 is likely to be.

1. Logical Find

In the web to come I want answers to my questions. I see computers assembling, perhaps in a crude way, real answers to real questions from various sources and not just serving up links that might contain answers to my questions.

If I ask, “How many planets are there in the universe” or “How many times have the New York Yankees won over 90 games in a season” or “I have a $5,000 and I want to go To Prague. What’s the best way to spend my money?” I want answers to questions which require, dare I say, “thought.” I’m tired of a regurgitated list of pages that might answer a query.

I suppose I’m drawing on the promise of Ask Jeeves. This time it’s time for Jeeves to give us meaningful answers. What we need now is not Jeeves but Watson. And if you saw Jeopardy a few months back you know this technology is coming to a computer near you. And probably sooner than you think.

2. Video Forms

In Web 2.0 video came of age, But I am still surprised that we haven’t had live Springsteen, McCartney or Lady Gaga concerts where we pay a fee to watch a live online global performance. Can you imagine? Live concerts shared on a global scale. Why haven’t we seen this yet?

For Web 3.0 video large companies will have online TV stations. While watching a video you will be able to order a product or service with an embedded form right into the video. I have no idea how this will work yet or if Adobe and others are working on such video players which would allow for direct user input of data. But it should be pretty cool if they were and it would give the web developers an option from using html contact form inputs such as text boxes, radio buttons and check boxes.

3. Privacy? What’s That?

The trade-off between free services and the surrendering of personal information will get even more pervasive in 3.0. It the browser becomes a Personal Assistant and Learns more about our likes and dislikes and is able to answer questions like “I’m in the mood for Tex Mex where should I go?” that stored information on your computer will be able to be taooed, knowingly or otherwise by any party who wants to know our preferences. Sure, a lot of that is already here but in 3.0 you can bet that advertisers, browser makers, Google and the like are going to know even more about us. Some people won’t like that and the rest won’t even know or care.

Where Did I Get My Insights For This Post?

No, i hardly spent anytime doing any research so I suppose a lot of this is either good guess work or way off the mark. But I did run into this very interesting video that tides a lot of things together.

Web 3.0 from Kate Ray on Vimeo.

How Will We Get From 2.0 to 3.0?

A broad range of new browsers is around the corner. Browsers that will be smart, fast, small and ubiquitous if you can stand being on the grid anymore than you already are.

No doubt HTML5 and CSS3 will play major roles in the online world of the future. And both of those are things I will be blogging a lot about as they move closer to approval by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).