What's Next After Web 2.0? Here's What You Told Us...
Over the weekend we editorialized that the world financial crisis will have a big impact on where Web Technology is headed. Has the world arrived at one of those giant inflexion points, we asked, where one Web era is usurped by another? We asked you to leave a comment in the post telling us what you think will be next. Many of you did just that and also the post was fortunate enough to get to the digg frontpage, where it received 100 additional comments. Finally, we polled our friends on Twitter today and got many great replies.
This is an attempt to synthesize, analyze and categorize all of the responses from RWW, digg and Twitter. What is next after Web 2.0? Read on!
Technical Advances
Jason Palmer claimed that XMLHttpRequest and AJAX drove web 2.0. He thinks that "the next wave will come once HTML 5 and CSS 3 are fully supported on all popular browsers. This will, again, give developers more toys to play with, and expand the boundaries of entrepreneurs."
Likewise a commenter called Joseph suggested "moving away from HTML and onto more advanced, more flexible technologies; otherwise it's not worth it."
Guy Bendov wrote that "better bandwidth & stronger CPU tell me that it will be about "multi media galore". More Flash and Silverlight apps and much more video."
Webjay creator and ex-Yahoo Lucas Gonze is not convinced the financial crash will cause a generational turnover, however he said that "if I had to bet, it would be that located computing will become a huge factor. "
Sumeet predicts "productivity apps (that save time), PaaS and WiMax+utility computing as delivery."
Liz optimistically suggested a "Web Vista".
Digg user Mankrik had an amusing take on tech advances: "Web 3.0 will enable us to punch web developers who abuse flash and bad site layout THROUGH the screen."
Word cloud of the comments from the original post, via wordle.net
Semantics & Personalization
Will The Semantic Web ever arrive? Several commenters were optimistic...
Mark Johnson, Powerset/Microsoft Program Manager, commented that "the next era of the Web will represent greater understanding of computers." He went on to suggest that "if Web 1.0 was about Read and Web 2.0 was about Read/Write, then Web 3.0 should be about Read/Write/Understand." Specifically he said that "a computer that can understand should be able to: find us information that we care about better (e.g., smart news alerts), make intelligent recommendations for us (e.g., implicit recommendations based on our reading/surfing/buying behavior), aggregate and simplify information. . . and probably lots of other things that we haven't yet imagined, since our computers are still pretty dumb."
Dan from Web3Beat wrote that we'll see improvement in personalization, by which he meant "machine understanding/retrieval of user context via a mix of Machine Learning and smart metadata technologies that are able to parse out context in a way that today 2.0 apps cannot". He also mentioned "user-driven opt in data (+portability)" and "monetizing data, versus monetizing pages".
Aziz Poonawalla said "folksonomy, leveraged en masse, could render algorithmic search obsolete. you get Semantic web almost for free."
ajkohn2001 thinks that "Microformats are a pre-cursor for how the semantic web will deliver information", pointing to Mozilla's Operator app ("a microformat detection extension") as an example.
Damien Basile reckons we will move to an "intuitive web", whereby "instead of being so literal the web will give me tangental possibilities".
The Hard Problems in The Real World
Tim O'Reilly, whose company coined the term 'web 2.0' in 2004, has been lately pushing for developers to tackle the hard problems of the world. Here are some suggestions from our readers on this theme...
Education is one area ripe for Web innovation. Harley of WorldLearningTree recently submitted his suggestions on how to revolutionalize online education to Google's "Project10ToThe100" contest.
Sandra Foyt is looking for a "better learning/connecting hub". She elaborates: "I want a command center where it's easy to share all kinds of digital media, while being able to chat or microblog. An all in one home base, with Twitter/Flock/Ning/Wiki/Flickr/YouTube elements."
Influential VC Fred Wilson pointed to a post from his venture firm recently, which was on the theme of the Web shifting power to individuals. Fred noted that "we are particularly interested in "disrupting and improving" education and energy markets".
Jorge Escobar said that the next era will be "Web Real World" - by which he meant "offline activities driven by web services (geoloc, mobile, niche)".
Jeff Tupholme wrote: "Web connects back to real world, helping save money on energy, recycle & share physical goods, create local markets etc. for mainstream".
Ari Herzog thinks that web 2.0 still has much work to do: "As long as the world remains backlogged on universal broadband access, as long as poverty exists in families and villages that the digital divide remains in vogue, and as long as cellphones are not widespread in developing nations, the concept of Web 2.0 is not going anywhere anytime soon."
Privacy & Security Issues
Privacy and security have been hot issues in the web 2.0 era, but they will become even more important in the next - as education, health and other 'real world' apps take center stage...
Gerrit Eicker predicted that "behavioural advertising will get into trouble" due to privacy issues. He also noted that "the Cluetrain Manifesto turns 10 years soon: We'll see a broad discussion about its impact. What's been achieved? What's outdated? Why and what hasn't become part of our lives, businesses, and markets?"
Tara Kelly of privacy app Passpack echoed Gerrit's concerns, saying that "Health care, education and finances are all *very* important issue to tackle, but they require a substantial level of data privacy in order to protect people from abuse."
barefootmeg said that "security is going to become an increasing concern, especially wireless security."
Business Models & Revenue
Of course while they're busy changing the world, entrepreneurs need to also pay their own rent or mortgage. Here is the feedback we got on business models beyond web 2.0...
Wes commented that it's up to entrepreneurs to "make things people are willing to pay for ... your ability to rely on credit to grow or experiment is limited by a general lack of confidence."
Ben Ruedlinger of online video app Wistia says that we will see "a shift towards companies building web applications which are creating real business value within the enterprise. This means either reducing operating costs or increasing revenues."
Rich Chetwynd of online training solution Litmos says that "the future of the web lies in finding ways outside of advertising to monetize user generated content."
Ben Young forsees "startups powered by 1-4 people, ultra small niche to dominate in, started for under $20k".
Robert Sterling tweeted that the financial crisis will lead to "dislocation of large chunk of US workforce & turbo-charging of indie work-for-hire and affiliate mrktg workforces."
Over on digg, ralphthemagi had some criticism of current web business models - calling the user-generated content model "You produce, we profit." He explained: "That is the driver behind Web 2.0. Basically, you can get people to *do work* (in most cases, creating content) for free, and then profit from their work by either charging them to do work, or selling your workforce advertising, or both. Of course, the "profit" part doesn't always pan out, but that's the goal."
Consumer & Communications
Consumer web apps dominated the Web 2.0 era. We'll continue to see improvements in the next era, we're sure. Here is what our readers thought on that front...
Dr. Taly Weiss sees web 2.0 being "enhanced" to help people deal with the global financial crisis: "People's life are about to change. Those people are active online. They will use the web to address their needs."
Bruce suggested we will see "more mashup type applications where people can entertain themselves and interact, but we should also see more useful apps with mashups so they can accomplish tasks more efficiently".
Paul Christian ('Fletch') sees the rise of a "non-elitist web and community of people who will make up [an] 8th mass media".
abhy hopes to see "more collaborations between websites. Nowadays everyone are on their own, it would be great to see more of services like www.admatchup.com or other banner exchange solutions, even in fields other than advertisements."
John McCrea forsees the walls coming down "and a new open stack (OpenID, OAuth, Portable Contacts, XRDS-Simple, OpenSocial, microformats) enables seemless interoperability, with users in control."
mark dunst said: "The web will follow the user. Folks will have central control of all their info (ex. health), media and converstations"
Wilson Craig said "The eradication of the fixed workplace and the complete disintermediation of information. Doing away with major networks, newspaper".
Rob Inskeep suggested "meta of content, communities of trust to validate UGC, creative commons privacy for UGC. Communities of relationships, not 'things'".
International & Mobile
Two trends of the current era are the increasing internationalization of the Web and mobile products like iPhone and Android becoming more prominent. It almost goes without saying that both of these things will become more prevelant over the coming years - and indeed both depend on the other...
Kumar pointed out that internalization of the Web is yet to peak: "Countries like India are yet to get fully connected.When at least 30 % of South Asia gets on to the Internet (right now it is like 2-3% at best), it is going to drive a lot of internet economy."
andi1984 said "the next step to Web 3.0 would be a mobilization of web-apps (e.g. iphone)."
John Metta of positorio.us said "location-aware networking. Apps such as @shizzow blending with rapid publish like @posterous to provide local content and interaction." He explained further that we can expect a "single interactive experience that changes 4 me not with app's location, but MY location."
Cory O'Brien expects "a convergence of data where you can put information in one place but access it through many other places and in many other ways".
Darren Sharp is looking forward to "augmented reality via mobile devices [and] serious location-based services."
Conclusion
The jury is still out on whether web 2.0 has officially ended. Of course the Web is iterative and so version numbers don't really mean anything. But even so we may see more of a focus on 'real world' problems from now on and a move away from consumer apps as the primary focus.
As always, please leave your thoughts in the comments.
Top image: adactio
Comments
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Taking a look at KillerAps.com, it seems like new web 2.0 sites and services are still launching every single day. However, due to the financial crisis across the globe and other factors, I think it is reasonable to believe that the focus will be more on real world problems than the kind of crap we see on the web today. That is a good thing if you ask me.
Posted by: Jeffro2pt0 | October 14, 2008 7:54 PM
Insightful post, bringing together lots of peoples different opinions (thanks for mention!). I like that quickly I can get 5 different views from different backgrounds.
To expand on my view, Drucker posited about 15 or so years ago that in the future organisations will be more like inside out doughnuts (a circle) and people will shift from doughnut to doughnut on a project kind of basis. A world of consultants. Bigger organisations will be broken into doughnuts.
The internet has laid the groundwork for this to happen.
That's why I think the next wave (call it Web 3.0) will be businesses developed by small teams, who work and run an agile operation, launching for under $20k. They will build solutions around ultra niche's and dominate globally. We are the number 1 provider of X for X.
Some great examples would be Yammer, Litmos, Ponoko.
They have a very specific niche and want to take it global and they will as long as they embrace being agile and the power of being small.
Thoughts?
Posted by: Ben Young | October 14, 2008 8:07 PM
"infomediaries" (old term?) "reintermediation" will play an increasing role in choosing trusted filters & service providers. just what is balanced between privacy & piracy, as either term gets debated & legislated, will likely make for lower cost launches of content & related datum that *can* be monetized (money, recognition, bandwidth, peers) -- but the shrinking window of "willingness to pay" will offset any upside (from low start-up) as competition over the quality of information is limited by timely access - simply, how to get paid before the new thing commands mindshare/location/recognizability - the "how" will be at a premium & the invisible hand will remain invisible.
Posted by: Wes | October 14, 2008 8:23 PM
First of all, using the terms "Web 2.0" and/or "Web 3.0" or any other "Web x.0" should be a felony in all 50 States, punishable by public stonings and/or hangings.
That'll get rid of most of the spin-doctors, hype-masters, hangers-on, deadbeats, posuers, and Tim O'Reilly, after which the rest of us can get on with the business of improving the Web.
Posted by: Phillip Rhodes | October 14, 2008 8:32 PM
"the next wave (call it Web 3.0) "
Why do we need to call it anything? How about just building cool stuff that works, and forget about arbitrary, meaningless labels?
Posted by: Phillip Rhodes | October 14, 2008 8:36 PM
This article's suggestion that Web 3.0 could focus strongly on education resounded with me very strongly. My company's research indicates that lots of university campuses are acknowledging the competitive advantage of having strong technology platforms for content management and delivery. We think part of the problem (?) Web 2.0 creates is that it generates exponentially growing amounts of information, which becomes harder and harder to efficiently get off the screen and into our brains. Intermz is building an educational platform that will hopefully dramatically improve learning speed, retention, recollection, and understanding, to help handle the rising tide of Web 2.0 output. We hope it becomes an example of where Web 3.0 might go.
http://www.intermz.com
Posted by: Ted | October 14, 2008 8:40 PM
The dude that wants to punch developers through the screen is closest to the mark.
Web 3.0D will be projected onto real spaces, augmenting the way we interact with the real world.
He'll have his revenge yet.
3.0A is for APIs (JS Graphics 2D & 3D, Geolocation Librarys etc)
3.0B is for Business2Business (Identity & Relationship Management)
3.0C is for Crowdsourcing
3.0D is for 3 Dimensions of augmentation.
Posted by: Craig Overend | October 14, 2008 9:00 PM
I'd be curious to hear Mark Dunst's and others' thoughts to something he said above: "The web will follow the user."
Might I offer, in the words of Kevin Kelly and Don Peppers, that the web (or technology in general) will be melded so much in a person's life that the only way to not be followed by technology is to literally seal oneself in a bubble? This won't occur overnight, and may be 10-15 years out, but William Gibson's predictions are echoed by many.
In this sense, it doesn't really matter what or when Web 3.0 is because there will always be future versions. I prefer to call the web with a simple descriptive term: the web.
Posted by: Ari Herzog | October 14, 2008 9:46 PM
@Jeffro2pt0
don't you mean killerapps.com? killeraps is apparently some job posting site in NY.
Posted by: Ace | October 14, 2008 10:53 PM
There might be WEB 3.0, WEB 4.0, WEB 5.0, WEB 7.0...WEB XP, WEB END, WEB END PLUS, WEB END PLUS+,...
Posted by: gowers | October 14, 2008 11:04 PM
Wow a lot of predictions. Some very interesting ones. I am looking forward to further development sin the mobile web area.
Posted by: Michael McGimpsey | October 15, 2008 12:17 AM
@Ace - Yeah, I meant KillerApps. Which is conveniently not loading for me at the present time.
Posted by: Jeffro2pt0 | October 15, 2008 1:03 AM
Reading these articles makes me feel horrid. To think all these geniuses are having all these great ideas and innovating in such an exciting field is amazing! To have been working in web production in an non-web-ish sector (recruitment advertising) that there are so many amazing innovative people and ideas around in the web industry at the moment, that being confined means
you will never see these things.
It does give you perspective, to look on the other hand, that how many of these ideas and innovations are commercially viable? Unless you are selling the ideas/apps to people who understand and want to use them then are they worthless? It's a real shame that the common man doesn't understand or grasp most of these new concepts otherwise we would probably see a massive push in web applications. After all wasn't the focus of Web2.0 on the user? I would hope that Web3.0 would focus on demystifying the web to the basic layman.
The chasm between advanced trendy "web2.0" start-up's and the regular joe is widening with ever increasing alacrity. As a geek myself, who wouldn't want to fight back the jocks and move to California to start up a hedge funded web start-up? There are already some great success stories out there and some great apps which have gained a foothold in wider society, but is this to do with the application or a more web literate younger generation?
Sorry for the rambling reply, but it's an interesting topic I think and one which will be governed, I hope, by bringing the utopia to fruition of bringing the web to the people who use it, rather than being sectioned off for corporations to make money from.
Hm, reading it back to myself I think it’s time to blast the dust off my CV ;)
Posted by: David | October 15, 2008 3:55 AM
David, your observation - "The chasm between advanced trendy 'web2.0' start-up's and the regular joe is widening with ever increasing alacrity." - is right and wrong in the same moment.
What you're describing has been true for the last 1 1/2 decades of Web-development: There's always been a small amount of people and businesses, I'd say about 1-3 percent of all onliners, driving the Web proactively (technologies, business models...), 15-17 percent actively and 80 percent following. And that's true for all other technologies and even more for social changes (what the Internet and Web are at first in my opinion).
But I don't believe that the gap is widening: The overall knowledge and media competence is increasing. People are adapting, participating, feeling more secure. - You don't have to read any studies about this. Simply take a look at your own family, your parents or even better: grand-parents. It's eye-opening.
And this is exactly why I believe that privacy will become an extremely important, basal issue for the next years: It's been discussed already. But until now it's been discussed by a (pretty liberal) minority only. The (more conservative) majority will sooner or later take part in this discussion. And (Web-)businesses will have to listen closely. Privacy might become one of the most important competitive edges during the coming years. It's basal for all current and conceivable business models.
Smile! Gerrit - We speak Online.
PS: Thanks for mentioning "privacy" and thanks for these posts.
Posted by: Gerrit Eicker | October 15, 2008 4:38 AM
Could Haaarg.com hide something next of 2.0 era?
Posted by: Juan | October 15, 2008 4:54 AM
Nice post.
I don't think that Haarg could hide something about 2.0..it seems just a good looking & corious blog!
cheers
Posted by: Susanne | October 15, 2008 4:57 AM
I agree with Ben that small, agile organizations will continue to become larger players (in terms of power and influence) in many areas.
I also believe that the next phase of the web will entail a significant evolution in monetization models. As Gerritt mentioned, privacy issues will more than likely play a large role in shaping these new business models.
Posted by: Beau | October 15, 2008 10:07 AM
Excellent collection of valuable thoughts :o)
I might be a bit too late to the party, but a couple of days ago I published a slideshow on slideshare.net summarizing some of my personal thoughts regarding the next generation of participation. (Which I think is relevant here?)
I think we are only seeing the beginning of collaboration and online community building. Arenas will move from walls on websites, to applications on micro devices. Data will be submitted conscious, subconscious and unconsciously through The Internet of Things. Being absorbed by those who can find use and new solutions based on it. Participation won’t be limited to one format or one address, it will be ubiquitous – where you can, how you want.
(shameless self-linking):
http://www.slideshare.net/helgetenno/next-generation-participation-presentation
In short, we are moving from pouring communication down one-way channels to lovemaking (a bit of Kevin Roberts Lovemarks there :o) on experience arenas.
And again, thank you for doing an excellent job summarizing all the opinions and thoughts here. It made my blog-reading day :o)
Posted by: Helge Tennø | October 15, 2008 2:56 PM
I agree Mark Johnson’s opinion “Web 3.0 should be about Read/Write/Understand.” Web should get capability of understanding context. Then we can get only information what we need.
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Posted by: Al Almeida | October 16, 2008 12:47 PM
I think entrepreneurship will drive innovation of the next web... web 2.0 exists as a result of collective innovation from entrepreneurs in areas such as wikis, blogging, social networking, social bookmarking, web services, Gmail, etc... it's going to take awhile before we see a new set of web technologies that overtake web 2.0 and change the landscape of the internet... so let's enjoy the ride (web 2.0) for now.
Posted by: gotodaily | October 17, 2008 11:47 PM
To me, web 2.0 is like Pentium 4, after that no Pentium 5 get launched but they kept on adding different improvements into that. Same would be the case with Web 2.0, they won't launched the new version but all the changes would appear as extensions...
Posted by: Social Media Marketing Blog | October 19, 2008 2:20 PM
The future is sideways. Web 1.0 was the downwards web. Web 2.0 was the upwards web. Web 3.0 will be the sideways web.
Posted by: Richard Stacy | October 20, 2008 9:39 AM