Monday, December 10, 2007

Resurrection of the late 1990s. 1<3<2?

Which came first? Web 2.0 or Web 3.0 Technologies?

Interesting question. Technology that supported Web 2.0 appeared around 1999. Microsoft created the asynchronous javascript to support Microsoft OWA and some other pieces of software. It was an interesting offshoot of the DHTML r-evolution.

Some (notably Tim O'Reilly) define Web 2.0 as a participatory movement. The evolution of WebPages into a two-way "interactive" medium can be seen as a consolidation of email, chat and newsgroups that were popular since 1980s. These e-communication paradigms became more public in nature - transforming into blogs and social networks. Written in HTML pages - rather than pure text files.

In effect, Web 2.0 was the remoulding of old communication paradigms into a Hypertext driven world. Newsgroups were wild social networks. Newsgroups were blogs that had no response control. The point is that global human participatory interaction over the net was identifiable since the 1980s.

Since 1996, XML - a derivative of SGML which rose out of IBM in the 1960's - has been touted as the next lingua-franca of the net. RDF, OWL and other XML languages and standards were proposed and formulated between 1997-1999. Semantic web started effectively circa 1998 as an identifiable paradigm.

In the history of the web, Web 2.0 may probably be remembered as a distraction. It is not surprising that Tim Berners-Lee discouraged the notion of Web 2.0 as being significant.

Web 2.0 may be identified as the time we took our eyes off the web - and started looking at ourselves as the center of a self-less web. It may be marked as the time when the selfish "we" became the center of a form-less web.

Now we are back to the roots again. We are back to making machines understand us.

Web 3.0 is truly an enigmatic mixture of machines and information - a space where men go like spiders looking for entertainment, news, food, love, work and life. Far from being participants, humans are becoming part of the web.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Beautifully written. So Web 3.0 came first, I imagine.

taxidesign said...

The Emperor’s New S(u)ite

Once upon a time lived an emperor who thought so much of the web that he spent all his money on the latest web technology. He did not care about the cost, or if the technology was easy to use; the only thing, in fact, he thought of was it had to be known as the latest in the world of web and as one would say of a king “He is in his cabinet,” so one could say of him, “The emperor is updating his home Page!”
The great city where he resided was very content; every day many strangers from all parts of the globe arrived. One day two swindlers came to this city; they made people believe they could manufacture the finest web technology that can be imagined by any human being. They called it the Web 2.0! Their technology, they said, were not only exceptionally beautiful, but the applications they possessed had the wonderful quality of being invisible to any man who was unfit for his office or unpardonably stupid.
“That must be a wonderful technology,” thought the emperor. “Maybe it is better than all the community platforms! If I were to own this web technology I should be able to find out which men in my empire were unfit for their places, and I could distinguish the clever from the stupid. And he gave a large sum of money to the swindlers, in advance, that they should set to work without any loss of time. They set up two work stations, and pretended to be very hard at work, but they did nothing whatever on their work stations.
“I should very much like to know how they are getting on with my web page,” thought the emperor. Personally, he was of opinion that he had nothing to fear, yet he thought it advisable to send somebody else first to see how matters stood.
“I shall send my honest old minister to the developers,” thought the emperor. “He can judge best how the stuff looks, for he is intelligent, and nobody understands his office better than he.”
The good old minister went into the room where the swindlers sat before the empty desktops. “Heaven preserve us!” he thought, and opened his eyes wide, “I cannot see anything special at all,” but he did not say so. Both swindlers asked him if he did not admire the exquisite Web 2.0 Platform and the beautiful Community Applications. The minister tried his best, but he could see anything new, for there was nothing to be seen. “Oh dear,” he thought, “Can I be so stupid? No, no, I cannot say that I was unable to see the new technology.”
“Now, have you got nothing to say?” said one of the swindlers, while he pretended to be busily coding.
“Oh, it is very pretty, exceedingly beautiful,” replied the old minister looking through his glasses. “What a beautiful application, what brilliant technology! I shall tell the emperor that I like the platform very much.” And so he did.
Everybody in the whole town talked about the precious technology and how the website might look. At last the emperor wished to see it himself, while it was still on the ‘testing phase’. He went to the two clever swindlers.
“Is it not magnificent?” said one of the statesmen who had been there before. “Your Majesty must admire the applications and the programs!” And then they pointed to the empty webpage, for they imagined the others could see the technology.
“What is this?” thought the emperor, “I do not see anything at all. That is terrible! Am I stupid? Am I unfit to be emperor?”
“Really,” he said, turning to the developers, “your technology has our most gracious approval;” and nodding contentedly he looked at the empty webpage. All his attendants looked, and although they could not see anything more than the others, they said “It is very beautiful.”
And all advised him to put up the new website on his homepage at a great procession which was soon to take place.
The whole night previous to the day on which the procession was to take place, the swindlers pretended to work. They pretended to take the software from the workstation, and worked about in the air with big codes, and said at last: “The emperor’s new website using Web 2.0 is ready now.”
“Does it please your Majesty now to graciously take down your old site and put the one made using our new technology,” said the swindlers?”
The emperor deleted his old website, and the swindlers pretended to put the new site on, one program after another; and the emperor looked at his website from all angle.
“I am ready,” said the emperor. “Does not my website look marvelous?” Then he turned once more to look at the website, that people should think he admired the new Web 2.0 technology.
The emperor marched in the procession and all who saw him exclaimed: “Indeed, the emperor’s new website is incomparable!” Nobody wished to let others know he saw nothing, for then he would have been unfit for his office or too stupid.
“But I don’t see anything on the screen! The screen is just a blank page!” said a little child. “Good heavens! Listen to the voice of an innocent child,” said the father, and one whispered to the other what the child had said. “But there is nothing on the screen,” cried the whole people. That made a deep impression upon the emperor, for it seemed to him that they were right; but he thought to himself, “Now I must bear up to the end.” And the chamberlains walked with still false dignity, as if they carried the latest and most amazing technology ever!

Georgi Ekimov said...

It is generally expected to be introduced to Web 3.0, a new wave of successful business applications should be the norm in the future. These applications will continue elegance and functionality of artificial intelligence, because machines will be able to understand human language.

How to Build Successful Web 3.0 Web Site

Harry Seo said...

Get your Free Credit Score Report - free for 30 Days. Unique anti-ID theft security measures included in this fantastic package as part of the service. Free Credit Score Report

Harry Seo said...

Thanks for taking this opportunity to discuss this, I feel fervently about this and I like learning about this subject.refrigerator repair

SEO Services said...

If you're still on the fence: grab your favorite earphones, head down to a Best Buy and ask to plug them into a Zune then an iPod and see which one sounds better to you, and which interface makes you smile more. Then you'll know which is right for you.