Web NG
Many music historians have grappled over Beethoven’s role in the evolution of western music - last of the classics, pioneer of the romantics? And so it is with Web 2.0. Did Amazon.com believe themselves two-point-oh when asking consumers to review their products online? Did the folks at imdb think they were futuristic when they first asked readers to vent spleen on the latest stinker at the box office? Were they being “Web 2.0″?
This is not a new debate on GTF. Amazon and imdb (along with countless MSN groups and yahoo chat rooms) surely started the Web 2.0 revolution before Mr. O’Reilly and co gave it a name. Web 2.0 coined, YouTube, Flickr and del.icio.us and other the 2.0-ers capitalised on the revolution, making a killing when Google and Yahoo! bought them. So, while businesses around the world are busily retro-fitting their online offerings with Web 2.0 gizmos, the smart money must be with the enterprising few who are already thinking about what comes next - Web 2.5, Web 3.0?
Web 3.0 has already been grabbed to mean something quite specific - take a look at Web 3.0 on Wikipedia.
Here at GTF, I’d like to coin Web NG for the next revolution. Web NG will arrive when web consumers can directly access the source data they need, manipulate it in the application of their choice, on the device they have to hand. What do you think the Next Generation will look like?
April 23, 2007 at 12:59 pm
Paul,
You are correct in the sense that 2.0 and 3.0 are empty terms. While your Web NG provides a definition of new capabilities - direct data access, application and ubiquitous delivery modes, I don’t think that any of these rise to a “next generation” status.
If you consider what the internet has done to provide ready access to information from multiple sources and not a certain degree eCommerce, I would submit that the next generation of the Internet will need to either enhance our security or improve our social interactions.
Think about the world we are living in now - how safe are we with terrorists and isn’t our whole mode of social interaction changing? I would look for an internet (and subnets) that provide virtual communities in an electronic age - just as our parents once knew and interacted with their neighbors.
Look forward to continuing this thread with you.
Jan Klein
Executive in Residence
Stevens Institute of Technology