Web 3.0: Is It About Personalization?
On the UK's Guardian newspaper site today, writer Jemina Kiss suggested that Web 3.0 will be about recommendation. "If web 2.0 could be summarized as interaction, web 3.0 must be about recommendation and personalization," she wrote. Using Last.fm and Facebook's Beacon as an example, Kiss painted a picture of a web where personalized recommendation services can feed us information on new music, new products, and where to eat. It's a marketers dream and it's really not far off from the definitions we've come up with in the past here on ReadWriteWeb.
We've written about web 3.0 and attempted to define it many, many times here over the past year. One of the common themes between almost all of the posts is that Web 3.0 and the vision of the Semantic Web are joined at the hip.
Last April, we held a contest asking readers for their web 3.0 definitions. Our favorite came from Robert O'Brien, who defined Web 3.0 as a "decentralized asynchronous me."
"Web 1.0: Centralized Them. Web 2.0: Distributed Us. Web 3.0: Decentralized Me," he wrote. "[Web 3.0 is] about me when I don't want to participate in the world. It's about me when I want to have more control of my environment particularly who I let in. When my attention is stretched who/what do I pay attention to and who do I let pay attention to me. It is more effective communication for me!"
What O'Brien was getting at is basically what Kiss was getting at: personalization and recommendation. And that's the promise of the Semantic Web. The easiest way to sell the Semantic Web vision to consumers is to talk about how it can make their lives easier. When machines understand things in human terms, and can apply that knowledge to your attention data, we'll have a web that knows what we want and when we want it.
ReadWriteWeb contributor Sramana Mitra put it another way on this blog last February, when she said that web 3.0 will be about adding context to personalization. "Personalization has remained limited to some unsatisfactory efforts by the MyYahoo team, their primary disadvantage being the lack of a starting Context," she wrote. "In Web 3.0, I predict, we are going to start seeing roll-ups. We will see a trunk that emerges from the Context, be it film (Netflix), music (iTunes), cooking / food, working women, single parents, ... and assembles the Web 3.0 formula that addresses the whole set of needs of a consumer in that Context." Or in other words, web 3.0 will be about feeding you the information that you want, when you want it (in the proper context).
Of course, the versioning of the Internet is kind of silly, and probably shouldn't keep going, but it is a fun way to look to the future and predict what we might be coming our way. What do you think of Kiss's idea about web 3.0 being about recommendation and personalization?
ShareRelated Entries
3 TrackBacks
TrackBack URL for this entry: http://www.readwriteweb.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-tb.cgi/3233
Comments
Subscribe to comments for this post OR Subscribe to comments for all ReadWriteWeb posts
Web 3.0 will be about INSTANT real-time communication via various protocols and media.
Personlization is Web 2.5.
Web 3.0 will will exploit the advances in computer and broadband technology
I'd fair to say it's mobile...
But it could be the Internet invading into our home appliances? The kitchen cabinets ( http://iKan.net ), the digital toilet (http://japtoilet.net ), the alarm clock (http://Sleep.FM) and the microwave (hmm couldnt find a link for that 1 yet). THough maybe that's jumping ahead?
After reading the essay RWW posted some weeks ago, I got the impression that web 3.0 will be more about an open interaction: people with machines, people with people and machines with machines.
Last week I wrote something about personalization of the web (in italian), and I think this is very interesting but I didn't thought in a name, a new titile as web 3.0 or web 2.5 or...whatever.
Very very interesting =)
I totally agree with you. But I also agree with the 1st commenter: the ad-hoc use-case, e.g. mobile access and communication, will play a mayor role, too.
hi
Kiss is interesting(always!!) . web 3.0 will be about smart agents i think . also search will move from everything to everyday search in local search context.
smart agents will also be recommendation agents who will do profiling/historical data analysis/trend analysis/ feature value comparisons etc.,
I think web 3.0 will be largely be device agnostic but largely mobile device based apps that will transform everyday decision making ( wow i got my tagline in there!!)
Our efforts @ www.findnearyou.com is only to be that platform that will enable this
Loved the article, especially the definition.
I strongly believe that the intersection of context and personalization will prove to be the most disruptive force in the evolution of the web.
I think web3.0 is the user installed web, where users can enrichen the websites by installing stuff they found to be interesting in a safe manner.
I think you have some of this with facebook and shared widgets, and I think that this will come together with instant messaging and instant communication.
Can we finish implementing Web 2.0 before we start talking about Web 3.0? We had 10+ years of "The Web" before "Web 2.0". Surely we have at least another year or two (understatement) before we actually know what Web 3.0 can, or should, look like?
What about traditional content providers (i.e. newspapers, magazines, TV stations)? If the Web as a medium focuses on personalization, can they adapt to this new media or must they simply allow better platforms with less institutional baggage dominate?
I posted about this a few months ago. I totally think it's about personalization and to a greater extent reaching out in the "real world."
I don't understand RWW's push to classify web trends as "Web 3.0." I don't believe that such classification is worthwhile, but even if it were the author's approach is misguided.
Web 2.0 was the name of a conference marking the web's return to economic stability and, in some cases profitability, following the dot com bust of 2000. Thus, it should follow that any definition of web 3.0 pertain directly to economic trends in online business. Not trends in the underlying technology of popular web properties.
Furthermore, the notion of Web 2.0 being about "interaction" is just plain wrong. The web as we know it has always been interactive particularly in contrast with other dominant forms of media.
Be Organized before you decentralized.
nhick
http://www.itrush.com
Everyone frames the discussion about the semantic web in terms of what kinds of experiences we want to have. But in reality, to make any of this semantic stuff start to happen, the tools need to be in place to create such experiences, almost as a side effect to the development process. Right now the relational database is the tool that people use to store data. The semantic web as envisioned by tim berners-lee has a different, and I believe unattainable developer model.
I write about this some more here:
http://whydoeseverythingsuck.com/2008/02/death-of-relational-database.html
The basic point is that relational databases will not easily yield semantic applications, and neither will the current semantic web technology because of its complexity. We need something to bridge this gap.
Web 3.0 is Semantic Web. It is Web 3D.
It's too early to talk about Web 3.0.
Actually, I don't know who can decide if we have a new version of the Web.
Software engineers know: to compile a new version, you need to have major modifications.
Two points here:
- We are still having successes with Web 2.0. (So we can't just jump over it).
- What are these major modifications of current Web.
We've got a lot of work to be done to organize information on the web. This is the main challenge.
The “cloud”, web-mobile, the introduction of WI-MAX, “omnipresence” and semantic search will be the next killer combination and driving force in activity for tech.
Call it Web 3.0, call it whatever you want. I call it cool.
sweller
Aside from all of the classifications - web 2.0, 3.0 25.0 - the next phase of the web will be about personal "relevancy". This will mean delivering and filtering content based on how it applies to our geographic locations, personal interests and our real world social stratification.
In my opinion, the current landscape is broken. Search is about who best manipulates links. Social Networks lack the infrastructure to gain true insights as to "who we are" as multi-layered beings - thus leaving us in a world of either all or nothing exposure or scattered identities across multiple platforms (ie. Facebook, Linked In, Last FM, Flickr, etc. etc.).
Articles like this one excite me. And they also continue to validate my concept currently under development.
I have a simliar, but slightly different take on what I see as the coming next generation of the Internet. Please, take a look at my post here... http://tpgblog.com/2007/12/06/modular-innovation-101/
Enjoy!
Jeremy Horn
The Product Guy
http://tpgblog.com
The best way to start fertilizing the semantic web, beyond tools, it to stop using the word 'semantic'; it has no currency in common parlance, and no concomitant analogue to real life.
Makes a lot of sense...Web 2.0 was about participation...Web 3.0 will be about making sense of all the content on an individual basis when everybody has started participating.
Personalization was a word thrown around 10 years ago when every web site tried to be a "portal."
Web 2.0 is more than interaction; it's about the browser as platform for applications.
I don't think any of us will understand what Web 3.0 is until we're soaking in it.
the question for me is...do we need web 3.0 already?
A very interesting direction is happening with www.mykaroo.com-- a parallel web, a way to post comments/blog about any website you visit in a separate window, independent of that website but while you're still looking at it, and share your comments with everyone else who goes to that website. What could be more Web 3.0 than a parallel web?
hi
web 3 is definitively about off line connexion, in the trend of google gear
think about it
looks like you've stirred up a hornet's nest, Josh.... :)
web 3.0: yes, we are talking personalization(but only if it solves/mitigates privacy concerns), recommendations(which take into account the who/what/when/where...and if we're lucky...the 'why'), and plasticity(anything, anywhere, anyway).
Why do we need release numbers to categorize something that is, in truth, simply a progression or evolution?
Honestly, this pre-occupation with labeling this stuff is ridiculous. I always find that this release point labeling is mentioned with monetization and consumers and this article is no different.
It's fun to prognosticate to a certain extent, but why add to the clutter by perpetuating this silly jargon.
Would you refer to the stages of your children's growth by release points?
I agree with Alex: articles like this one are really exciting =)
How about Web 3.0 simply being the Web of Linked Data? The evolution of the Web where strucutured interlinked data comes into focus.
Once you have a Linked Data Web you then have the platform upon which to cost-effectively develop very powerful personlization and recommendation systems.
Just as was the case with Web 2.0 in which APIs enabled more particiapation etc.
We are simply experiencing different ways of exploiting the Web:
1.0 - Documents and Hyperlinks
2.0 - Web Services (SOAP or REST styles)
3.0 - Linked Data
Combining all of the above provides a powerful platform for doing many things.
It will also be quite interesting to observe the resilience of data silos. Will they persist or vapourize as a result of Web 3.0?
HEY NOT SO FAST.
Before you go jumping to 3.0, let's fix the Web 2.0 issues (comment boards overrun with spam, trolls, flamewars, anyone?) and have a Web 2.1.
Then maybe we can fix usability problems such as "everybody everywhere has different ugly, hard to read, hard to use, not friendly to visually impaired people buttons" and call it Web 2.2.
Please?
I know, it's much more fun to implement crazy new pie in the sky features. The above is boring drudgery. But fixing bugs and improving usability is what grown ups do.
haineux, you're absolutely right. There are many things to discover, change or improve in the web 2.0..
I was shocked today when I saw that out of 20 students (aged between 20 and 30) only 3 people (including me) have ever used last.fm ...
Shouldn't everybody concentrate on popularizing and exploring the existing personalized services?
it's funny, i've been programing on the web since '92. my kids are now on facebook, myspace, flikr, using im, irc, blogging, digging, whatever. I was web 1, they are web 2.
web 3 will be when these kids that are now using the apps on all the other sites on their own site that will have it all.
web 2 is when a kid goes to 12 different sites to do what they want.
web 3 is when all of that is on their own site, and they own it.
Using Last FM and Facebook, I can definitely see where you're going with this. My question would be: do you think enough people have even embraced web2.0 to move to web3.0? of course I know it doesn't necessarily have to be a linear path, but it would be hard to make a complete jump, don't you think?
If Web 2.0 is more about economics and also marks the browser as a portal to applications rather than the desktop, Web 3.0, should it exist in the near future, will likely be about an era in which programming is as prevalent as writing is today. It will be an era that marks GUIs or DUIs (Direct User Interfaces) into web applications without any need for any sort of presentation layer. If such an era is approaching (and I think it is only decades away), it will certainly deserve the mark of Web 3.0
great article... but i must agree with #33
My question would be: do you think enough people have even embraced web2.0 to move to web3.0?
I have noticed that so so many of my friends, family, coworkers and even fellow developers still ask me what delicious is...or they never got a facebook account cause they use myspace=sucks! and some don't know the term Web2.0! some are just getting into RSS. I know that perhaps my circle of friends is not too large..but it still baffles me how some people are still using AOL on a dial up connection!!! Yes ....i know...un believable .!!! but they do exist! I think that information and technology are growing SO FAST that eventually even the super netizen will not have time to adapt to the next zeitgeist before it's old.
I disagree with this. Web 2.0 was about contribution - us giving to the community. I think that this article's web 3.0 - personalization - is just a backlash against an overflow of too much contribution. I'd call it Web 2.5 because it doesn't actually move on - its web 2.0 curbed.
My vision of web 3.0 is not very clear either, but I think a good approach to thinking about it comes from looking at the hardware capabilities 5-10 years from now. That decouples the current trends with what can happen in the future.
Hi there
We just launched something totally related to this piece.
MyTrybe.com is the first social network that connects people based on their personal values as determined by how they rate postings. It forms taste-networks, then pools their social intelligence to make relevant recommendations. Ratings are used to connect people to eachother. We literally just launched public beta and someone posted this article on it! Appropriate.
I invite you to learn more
http://www.mytrybe.com/about
Please send your feedback as well.
Thanks
Dan
this discussion cannot possibly end so quick! :)
I heard someone talk about a web 2.5...perhaps Web 3.0, as we know it, won't exist...how's that for a thought?!
I called it Utopia 3.0
I don't think there is a web 1.0, web 2.0 or web 3.0. The web is just like a living entity, maybe because it is relective of people who created it and maintain it. It is just constantly evolving, just a bit faster then we humans. My name is Darwin and that's my theory.
I think we're missing the point. I believe the concept of 'the website' will be revisited, and slowly but surely, websites will redefine what they are offering, and utilize semantically marked up data to offer their services efficiently to a variety of platforms and devices. A free flow of highly accessible, semantic and useful information will change our ever increasing use of the www.
Jemima has gone over this ground before (http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/digitalcontent/2007/11/is_web_recommendation_too_hard.html) and I disagreed with her too: recommendation has been around for donkey's years. Amazon have been gradually refining their recommendations engine for ages.
Anyway, I too hope that this daft version number idea is abandoned sooner rather than later. It only makes sense that the future web will be one which is more relevant and more usable. The content you need before you have to ask for it - and this will be partly helped along by computers better understanding the words we use when we make and look for content.
cooking / food personalization: see www.tastebook.com
I agree that Web 3.0 will be about both recommendation and personalization (and about even more creative forms of user-generated content). I also agree that advertisers are hungering to take advantage of this by insinuating themselves contextually into those "conversations" (as THE CLUETRAIN MANIFESTO would call them).
And I agree that the problem is that advertisers have not yet figured out how to truly personalize or contextualize their messages so that instead of their tools (widgets, Facebook apps, etc.) representing thinly-disguised and off-base sales pitches, they actually provide value to the customer along the way to inserting their marketing message.
So here's a radical solution: why not actually let the USER control her own advertising interactions? Why not create ads that provide rich, deep, user-selectable information - such that the user herself can navigate directly to the specific answers that she wants, or the marketing pitches that most resonate with her, or even the transaction she wants (which is the advertiser's ultimate holy grail)? Advertisers can certainly create these pathways in advance according to their best GUESS as to who their customers are and what motivates their buying decisions, and they can even use the cleverest possible behavioral or contextual sensing mechanisms to provide a set of pathways that are reasonably close to the customer's need, but the key difference would be to then let the USERS cross that last mile by choosing the navigation path that THEY want.
In the spirit of full disclosure, this is what my company does. But I/we truly believe in the vision of CUSTOMER-CENTRIC, CUSTOMER-DRIVEN advertising. Surely what truly benefits the customer will also, incidentally, be good for the advertiser.
Websites are becoming more and more personalized. We're getting closer to that completely personalized experience.
By the way, another blog about the article here: http://twooh.blogspot.com/2008/02/web-30-rank-and-recommendation.html.
Kiss is here and they say you better like their idea about f'ing web 3.0.
it's JemiMa...not Jemina. :)
I completely agree with Kiss's idea about web 3.0 being about recommendation and personalization. But it's not a prediction at all! It's already happening! Now it's not mainstream by any stretch but that's nothing more than an awareness issue.
Web personalization and the power to serve the right message at the right time is a competitive advantage many e-commerce retailers already use. And the technology is something we develop here at Sitebrand.
It's real! And it needs to be embraced more. In fact, the travel industry needs to step up! See my earlier post on this very topic...
http://blog.sitebrand.com/2008/02/11/booking-travel-online-%e2%80%93-why-don%e2%80%99t-web-sites-listen-like-agents-do/
If web 2.0 could be summarized as interaction, web 3.0 must be about recommendation and personalization.
Sorry, but recommendation has already been done by Amazon (dubbed by some as Web 2.0). In a short sentence, I would say that web 3.0 is nothing more than just a word.
James said...
Why do we need release numbers to categorize something that is, in truth, simply a progression or evolution?
Honestly, this pre-occupation with labeling this stuff is ridiculous. I always find that this release point labeling is mentioned with monetization and consumers and this article is no different.
It's fun to prognosticate to a certain extent, but why add to the clutter by perpetuating this silly jargon.
Would you refer to the stages of your children's growth by release points?
Amen to that James.
It is understandable, that RWW is fixated with Web-xxx. But hey, that's how RWW makes its earning from a huge follower of web-xxx as a catch-phrase. Regarding my previous comment, about Josh Catone's assertion in his article that Web-3.0 is about recommendation is misleading and I am not sure whether Josh , made that comment deliberately to mislead or just innocently quoting it without knowing that what Amazon has been doing for a few years now is called recommendation, ie, Customers who bought item A also bought item B or Customers who looked at item A also looked at item B. So, recommendation is not new, it is already with us. If Josh doesn't know that Amazon book recommendation is the recommendation that he referred to in his post, then I can't say anymore.
Hi, how about this...?
Web 3.0 as "the dawn of Semantic Web, first person scattered and lost in the Internet clouds"
by roomrag
1 2 Next