There is No Web 3.0, There is No Web 2.0 - There is Just the Web
Something struck me while listening to Tim O'Reilly's keynote speech at the Web 2.0 expo yesterday: glancing at my notes after he walked off stage, I noticed that his current definition for Web 2.0, is a lot like the definition he's given for Web 3.0. Based on this, plus past comments from O'Reilly that I dug up via a few web searches, I am forced to one conclusion: Tim O'Reilly, the man credited with popularizing the term Web 2.0, doesn't actually believe it exists. For O'Reilly, there is just the web right now. 1.0, 2.0, 3.0 -- it's all the same ever-changing web.
Let's first take a look at Tim O'Reilly's widely used and accepted compact definition for Web 2.0 circa 2006 (way, way back in the dark ages of a year and a half ago):
Web 2.0 is the business revolution in the computer industry caused by the move to the internet as platform, and an attempt to understand the rules for success on that new platform. Chief among those rules is this: Build applications that harness network effects to get better the more people use them. (This is what I've elsewhere called "harnessing collective intelligence.")
We can perhaps simplify that even further: Web 2.0 is the web as a platform and collective intelligence (or, leveraging of user created data). Now let's look at Tim's definition of Web 3.0 (which actually predates his last Web 2.0 definition):
Recently, whenever people ask me "What's Web 3.0?" I've been saying that it's when we apply all the principles we're learning about aggregating human-generated data and turning it into collective intelligence, and apply that to sensor-generated (machine-generated) data.
Which we can simplify to mean, the leveraging of the things we created in Web 2.0. And here's the Web 2.0 defintion he had up on a slide yesterday during his keynote:
- The Internet is the platform
- Harnessing the collective intelligence
- Data as the "Intel Inside"
- Software above the level of a single device
- Software as a service
O'Reilly talked about Web 2.0 in terms of taking user-generated data and turning it into user facing services. So now we're starting to see a lot of overlap between the two definitions. He's also brought in a lot of Web 3.0 definitions that other people have given and used them as part of this broader definition of Web 2.0. For example, Eric Schmidt of Google talked about Web 3.0 in terms of sofware as a service and cloud computing. Our own Alex Iskold talked about Web 3.0 in terms of web sites being turned into platforms. And so on.
"For 'Web 3.0' to be meaningful we'll need to see a serious discontinuity from the previous generation of technology ... I find myself particularly irritated by definitions of 'Web 3.0' that are basically descriptions of Web 2.0," Tim O'Reilly once said, which is mildly ironic given that his current Web 2.0 definition basically eclipses his old Web 3.0 definition. But in reality, I think O'Reilly is saying that the versioning doesn't really matter -- the web is the web.
"The points of contrast [between Web 2.0 and Web 3.0] are actually the same points that I used to distinguish Web 2.0 from Web 1.5. (I've always said that Web 2.0 = Web 1.0, with the dot com bust being a side trip that got it wrong.)," wrote O'Reilly last fall. In otherw words, the versioning of the web is silly. Web 1.0, 2.0, or 3.0 is all really just whatever cool new thing we're using the web to accomplish right now.
And he has a point. A couple of days ago, we wrote about the history of the term Web 3.0 and noted that the term itself doesn't really matter, what matters is the discussions we have when trying to define it. "It is the discussion that is helpful rather than coming to any accepted definition. Some might argue that version numbers are silly on the web, that Web 2.0 and Web 3.0 are just marketing ploys, and that we shouldn't use terms that are so nebulous and difficult to define. Those are all fair points. But at the same time, the discussions we have about defining the next web help to solidify our vision of where we're going -- and you can't get there until you decide where you want to go," we wrote.
Web 2.0 and Web 3.0 -- they don't really exist. They're just arbitrary numbers assigned to something that doesn't really have versions. But the discussion that those terms have prompted have been helpful, I think, in figuring out where the web is going and how we're going to get there; and that's what is important.
So next time someone asks me what we cover on ReadWriteWeb, maybe I won't use the term "Web 2.0" in my reply, I'll just tell them that we write about the web, what you can do with it now, and what you'll be able to do with it in the future.
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Before Web 2.0 was, Web 3.0 is, here.
Buzzwords, buzzwords and more buzzwords. Hype, hype and more hype.
STUMBLED!
I think people are still trying to get a handle on web 2.0, let a lone web 3.0
Thanks for sharing.
VOTED for this post at:
http://www.newsdots.com/industrynews/there-is-no-web-3-0/
None of this Web 2.0 Web 3.0 means anything at all to the normal person. It is all the internet.
Comment #2 by Son Nguyen is right....hype, hype, and more hype.
Live From Las Vegas
The Masked Millionaire
There's only ever the search for interactivity.
Since authentic face to face interaction has been ruled out (Wey to risky!) it's up to the A-list for new means to duck the moment. Hence the entirely /phatic/ nature of MySpace and FaceBook ... as one wag put it: "Victory is when we come together and finance a full-page spread in the NYTimes".
Instead of straining to produce real solutions to real and ever.more.pressing problems, the emphasis is on coming up with ever.more.specious means of bla-yada.blah.
When Marie Antoinette came up with, "Do they not have cake?" to the declarative statement, "The poor no longer have bread to eat" she catalyzed the rebellion and turned it into a revolution.
Words have their effect.
Thoughts have their effect.
Sentience has its effect.
Karma is true.
There's /bodhicitta/ and there's otherwise.
*shrug*
WhadooIknow ...
... I've only been there / done that.
*shrug*
Yuppies' kidz really trigger my gag reflex.
Thank you for this opportunity to practice forbearance.
bentrem aka Karma Chopal
Gawd - I'm so sick of the term "web 2.0".
Lets get over what is called. Lets focus on what we can do with it.
To quote Hugh MacLeod here:
"It's not what the software does, it's what the user does."
http://www.gapingvoid.com/114446615687.jpg
Just as the Web (HTTP, HTML, CSS, Javascript) built on the set of technologies and standards of the Internet (TCP/IP), the next step of communications technology that builds on the Web can be called the Graph, made up of standards like RSS/Atom, OpenID, Jabber, and maybe Tim Berners-Lee's Semantic Web technologies.
The Graph is about structure and direction between the links, where the nodes are representations of real world things that can be interpreted by both human and machine.
You can get caught in the Net, tangled in the Web, but you get orderly placed on the Graph.
http://socialgraphtheory.com/2008/the-next-phase-of-social-technology
I'm with you 103%, Josh.
Check out Utopia 3.0.
You'd talked about version-ing the Internet as being a silly thing to do even then.
The web/Internet is, and always has been, an evolving construct. Assigning it a version is theoretically impossible, because at any given point, different nodes of the web are at different points in their life-cycle.
You just can't have a definition on something so disparate, fragmented, dynamic, and increasingly personal. All you can do is Leverage, Associate, and Participate with the web.
And this LAP dance will only get better with time!
I think it is silly to version the web. The power of internet is that we don't have to upgrade it, It continue to evolve. But this is great point. Web 2.0 or 3.0 or whatever we call it or how we define it is not important. But the discussion we have to define these terms and the ideas that we come up with along the lines probably make up for the silliness of versioning the web.
No web versioning?
No duh.
Thank you very much! Very good that somebody finally says it.
I agree that the discussion about the topic is more important than the version numbers. Who can define this exactly anyway?
Sometimes people get so caught up with what's possible, using the latest technology, employing the newest features only to find out that the visitor of your site doesn't have a clue about all this stuff and just wants a good, working and solidly built site.
Using latest technology and observing trends is nice, but it's not always necessary. Sticking to what works is often the better choice. You have to ask yourself: are you doing scientific web research or are you building a site with a business model?
But keeping the versions can be good. Once we all find out That Web 4.2.6 has collapsed we can pull Web 2.0 out of Subversion ;-)
I agree there's just the Web. Problem is, if you just say the Web, ordinary people, who might have heard of Web 2.0 as the next big thing, might think you are behind the curve. Similarly, if you say Web 3.0, people might think you are ahead. So, from a marketing point of view the versioning of the Web is probably here to stay, until we come up with a better name.
What was good about the expression Web 3.0, especially last year, was that it was fairly new and caused a lot of controversy as soon as it was mentioned. Today I feel that there is a "Web 3.0 fatigue" in the same way that we have a Facebook fatigue (I hope that I am wrong here ;-) )
Maybe it is time to throw Web 3.0 in the Deadpool, and come up with some new controversial expression that annoys enough of people, so we get some great discussions. Robert Scoble once suggested Web 2007, which obviously is inadequate today, but perhaps a code name instead of a number, like Web Zebra or something. Probably this is too confusing, so we'll be better off just sticking to Web 3.0.
/Jonas
Posted by: impl.emented.com
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April 25, 2008 2:01 AM
That's spot on. This whole 2.0 and 3.0 thing is just meaningless buzzword usage.
There has never been a telephone 2.0.
There is the internet, which is used better and differently by the people as they got more and more used to it.
The traditional versioning style of applying numbers to upgrades to software really falls apart with the Web. With desktop applications you need to have discrete upgrades, because it is only practical to put many new features into a product before you can ship it out.
With the Web, applications can be upgraded as they need, and developers can add any small feature or bug fix at any time, and all users will have access to them immediately. Just as we don't have Gmail 2.0, Wikipedia 3.14 or Digg 5.06, it doesn't makes sense to apply version numbers to the Web as a whole.
Just like the individual Web applications, Web doesn't develop incrementally, it's improving continuously.
Josh,
Good discussion. In general I see Web dotting as a workable, not-so-simple way to show progress or evolution on the aggregate and as you say, a helpful way to discuss where we are on this path. Web versioning is too different to be compared with software versioning. It's too dynamic --- kind of like us humans. I wonder if anthropologists could come up with human versioning. Hmmm... Pharmas would have a fun with that. "Lack social skills, take this pill and expand your personality to Human 12.0!".
I like just the "web". You make sense. Software is just "software". Software that connects to the "web" is not Software 2.0. I really don't like enterprise 2.0 either. Its just "enterprise". Just because they use some browser apps does not make it any more a revolution than web vs web 2.0.
Can you say duh huh? I knew that you could. Ask anyone outside the tech echosphere what web 2.0, twitter, etc is and most have no idea. I bet most people couldn't tell you what a web portal is, and how long has Yahoo and similar types been around.
Well, this is interesting because I wrote a very similar story about one week ago for tech.blorge.com. It's also interesting because this version (but not mine) was featured on Techmeme which could be due to several factors and I'm not here to debate that.
Just that this article references Tim O'Reilly and I referenced Tim O'Reilly and similar ideas were discussed by both of us.
Now, that's fine. It would be hard not to mention O'Reilly when discussing "Web 2.0" issues. I'm wondering if I should just toss this all up to coincidence or if there's more going on here... you know?
Of course there was no photoshop 2, photoshop 3 , photoshop 4 , photoshop 5 , photoshop 6, photoshop 7, photoshop CS1, photoshop CS2, photoshoop CS3. The same for Windows, Mac OS, and so on...
Can you explain why nobody complains about OS and software incrementation ?? Hum, I know, you have to make the next blogging vaporware...
Tim Berners-Lee said via this interview (http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060901-7650.html) :
"If Web 2.0 for you is blogs and wikis, then that is people to people. But that was what the Web was supposed to be all along. And in fact, you know, this 'Web 2.0,' it means using the standards which have been produced by all these people working on Web 1.0.""
and:
He's big on blogs and wikis, and has nothing but good things to say about AJAX, but Berners-Lee faults the term "Web 2.0" for lacking any coherent meaning. A quick look at a list of alleged Web 2.0 sites is enough to illustrate what he's talking about. In what sense do all the sites do something qualitatively different than the sites which came before? In what sense do these sites do anything similar enough that they can all be lumped into a single category?
***
So, basically, "Web 2.0" is "much ado about nothing".
I'm fine with just 'web' but versioning is must to cope up with the prevailing markets and in fact the emerging ones as well!
It's good to see more people waking up to the fact that 'Web 2.0' is a giant farce. What O'Reilly has presented us with in the form of this confusing nomenclature is the most misguided round of discussion over nothingness that the Internet generation has ever seen.
In South Africa we also have a legion of self-appointed web experts who march around from conference to unconference spouting nonsense, stating the obvious and using terms like 'Web 2.0" to make it sound like they know what they're talking about.
Hopefully we'll see more posts like this one exposing the bollocks...
It's good to see more people waking up to the fact that 'Web 2.0' is a giant farce. What O'Reilly has presented us with in the form of this confusing nomenclature is the most misguided round of discussion over nothingness that the Internet generation has ever seen.
In South Africa we also have a legion of self-appointed web experts who march around from conference to unconference spouting nonsense, stating the obvious and using terms like 'Web 2.0" to make it sound like they know what they're talking about.
Hopefully we'll see more posts like this one exposing the bollocks...
It's good to see more people waking up to the fact that 'Web 2.0' is a giant farce. What O'Reilly has presented us with in the form of this confusing nomenclature is the most misguided round of discussion over nothingness that the Internet generation has ever seen.
In South Africa we also have a legion of self-appointed web experts who march around from conference to unconference spouting nonsense, stating the obvious and using terms like 'Web 2.0" to make it sound like they know what they're talking about.
Hopefully we'll see more posts like this one exposing the bollocks...
While I don;t agree with versioning the 'web' as a whole - as someone said, different parts are at different stages of tehir life cycle - but individual sites can be classed as supporting 'Web 2.o' technologies.
I'm still not confident in the Web 2.0/3.0 crossover though.
Web 2.0 and Web 3.0 (and no doubt later types) are all just hype created by bloggers needing something to write about and "Internet Guru's" needing something to talk about.
A good website will always remain a good website.
It the analysis of good websites and social interaction across their platforms that definitions of the Web x.x comes from. Rather than working from the definition to reality, use reality and create a definition...albeit, it is always the human instinct to try and define and box something.
In my opinion, I agree that all that exists is the Web. The Web and good ideas.
What I find very dull are all the people who whine about "frivolous" "buzz" and "farce" and "marketing".
They are the pretentious ones.
Difficult concepts have always needed shorthand forms. "Web 2.0" and the like are never going to end up in any dictionary. But if they can help clarify complex phenomena (and for me they have) then let's use 'em.
Spot on analysis.
By trying to separate the various functions of the Web into 2.0/3.0/etc. we lose sight of the fact that they're all the same web.
Using 2.0/3.0 has definitely been helpful in explaining and understanding some of the major trends in the Web's growth, but if we're to make the most out of its potential we'd be remiss to consider its functions as silos when it can be so much more effective to look at what the web can do as a whole.
All this being said, the Internet does have a language problem: we need a lot more words and descriptions of things that only appear online. I'm not necessarily suggesting a need for more buzzwords, just a more robust lexicon for explaining what all these revolutionary applications are and can do.
If anyone else is interested in this line of thought, my first challenge to you is to figure out another word for broadband that can help distinguish the capacity of a full fiber network.
Interesting, the reason I started to write a blog last year, was exactly because I got tired of bloggers and also the newsroom journalists using these versioned Web terms, when actually what they want to say is something completely different. Here are the two articles:
What is Wrong with the Tech Journalism, and Usage of the Term ‘Web 2.0’
Well there is a patented trend going from storefronts, to applications, to platforms. All 3 exists simultaneously...we're already looking at early stage platforms (facebook, GAE) which are very 3.0-ish but you've still got plenty of storefronts around the internet.
The only real versioning that I do follow are the alcohol content (by % volume) of beers & wines locally made here in New Zealand. There is Steinlager 5.0 , Lion Red 4.0, Rheineck 2.5 (this beer is for drinkers at a party who intend to drive a vehicle afterward, low alcohol), and the wines have higher versions, such as Cabernet Sauvignon & Merlot 9.0, plus more... I seriously doubt that these alcohol-xxx will be progressing to higher versions at all.
Geoff Daily said...
...my first challenge to you is to figure out another word for broadband that can help distinguish the capacity of a full fiber network.
Ok, how about the term Ultrafast Photonics and if you want more technical info on the subject, then read the following summary (PDF).
Progress in Ultra-fast Photonics
If you want to learn more about the technology, then perhaps you can just pop down to your local (nearest) University Physics Department (or Electrical & Electronic Department) to talk any of those experts there in the field of Photonics.
PS : I did specialize in this area of Physics by training, but now write software for a living.
Interesting . . . you mean it is really just Web Right.Now? I actually like this idea as evidence of the web's fluidity continues to be more and more obvious.
I hate how people use the term Web 2.0. What I have always considered it to be is all of the web properties that started after the last bubble burst, Web 1.0 is all of the web sites that started before the bubble burst. That would also mean that we can't have a Web 3.0 until the next bubble bursts.
Why can't everyone just go with that definition, this way it would be more like generations of the internet and less like what certain websites happen to have in common.
Although they are seen as buzzwords, it might be benefit us if there is a term that will distinguish the evolution of the internet.
I am talking about "web 2.0" or whatever you want to call it. No matter how you want to put it, how we interact on the web has clearly evolved from what it used to be in the previous decade.
The problem is that you have O'Reilley already throwing the next version in the mix without a clear definition on how to classify this evolution.
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