The Future of Web 3.0 According to Yahoo!
At the Web 3.0 Conference and Expo in Santa Clara today, Dave Beckett (principal software architect at Yahoo!) and Tom Hughes-Croucher (technical evangelist, Yahoo! Developer Network), answered questions about the recent consumer release of Yahoo! Open Strategy (Y!OS) and discussed the company's future plans to open up almost everything.
"The open source, hacker attitude has been part of our culture for so long; now we're opening up the different pieces," Hughes-Croucher told the packed room yesterday. "We're taking data from across our sites and sharing it."
Dubbed the 'rewiring of Yahoo,' Y!OS 1.0 launched this week with the introduction of the social suite. Its strategy focuses on opening up almost everything to developers, including content, traffic, and Yahoo's user base.
Y!OS: What It Means to Developers
When asked what type of data will be available to developers, Hughes-Croucher said that Yahoo's strength is in historical data which can be accessed, assessed, and used to make the user experience better; the caveat of course is: with the users permission.
"If we use this data and grid computing to process the data, we don't need to ask you to import your address book - we already know that information," added Beckett. "At the end of the day though, this is your data."
But it's not just about user data, he says, search data is coming into it as well, via searchmonkey.
To make things simple for everyday developers, the Yahoo! duo told the audience they are concentrating on APIs for sites like Flickr and Delicious. "Of course, there are other technologies, like Yahoo! Query Language (YQL), the next generation of Yahoo Pipes, that brings ease of use to query language," says Hughes-Croucher.
One concern with YQL is that Yahoo! is creating its own proprietary standard to lock people into a language, but Hughes-Croucher told the audience that this isn't the case. "In terms of standards what we've seen is that a lot of the major companies are looking at taking ad hoc solutions that work well, and then collaborating - OpenID is one example of that."
Y!OS: Open and Social
Not only is Yahoo! becoming more open, it's also becoming more social with the debut on Thursday of a new universal user profile. If you're not familiar with it, Yahoo! Profiles offers a centralized control panel that lets users manage their social connections across Yahoo, and eventually across the Web.
"The key part of the Profiles launch is that unlike FaceBook, it will make very specific connections to the people that are important in your life," says Hughes-Croucher."
Profiles is only the first stage of Yahoo's Open Strategy. "It will let you start making social connections, and in the coming months you'll see other things," said Beckett.
As moderator Hank Williams said at the beginning of the session: "Yahoo! because of its scale is like a microcosm of the Internet and a lot of the things it does, or is working on, are things we can learn from when we explore how to bring Web 3.0 to life."
Of course, this begs the question: will Y!OS help make Yahoo! a viable competitor to Google? What do you think?
ReadWriteWeb is a media sponsor of the Web 3.0 Conference
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I think It's very intresting stuf for publishers and developers.
http://www.oxyshopping.com
Web 3.0 is still considered a phrase describing the future of the World Wide Web, which has an infinite amount of possibilities and just as many differing opinions on what those possibilities will be and We also have a major advantage in colonizing and monetizing the Web.
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Tanyaa
Internet Marketing
Calling this, or indeed anything Web 3.0 is ludicrous. I would have hoped that ReadWriteWeb would have had the sense and indeed integrity to avoid lending its name to such vapourous puff.
This sudden openness of yahoo since facebook became a phenomenon is certainly good for new startups and will enable easy development of mashup based apps.
We were using google search widget and will be moving to Y! BOSS in our next release.
So there is they didn't mention about the hardware specification for web 3.0? Cause my imagination of web 3.0 is making the web looks like desktop.
I'm not sure if yahoo should be concerned about competing with google per say. People don't want to be locked into one specific service. What they want is to have there data work across a variety of online applications. If yahoo can simplify the handling and using of that data, they'll be putting themselves in a great position. Imagine if facebook was open enough to allow twitter feeds? I would be Amazing. The more open yahoo can be the happier "social networkerers" will feel and be willing to use there services.
I think there is no web 3.0, web 2.0 was about redefining the web as a changing dynamic platform as opposed to the idea that it was static, as many believed it to be earlier on.
It doesn't make sense to increment the number as a result this new definition.
will Y!OS help make Yahoo! a viable competitor to Google? What do you think?
am sorry what ? don't you know about the deal there are cooking !
Vovv, very good web 3.0
web 3.0 vovvvvv
web 3.0 vovvvvv
Television Spy, there is no such thing as Web 2.0 (or 1.0) either. So you can't reject 3.0, but just decide 2.0 is fine, because that's how you feel. When someone raises an objection, audiences expect some reasoned argument (and my hunch is your arguments against 3.0 can be applied to 2.0 as well, e.g., they're a marketing "fluffy" term, etc. etc). I would say: let's leave technologists design technologies, and let's leave product marketers/managers, and corporate strategy to do their specialty. I've frankly had enough of this "I hate 3.0, but love 2.0 moniker" crap.
Dan, your acceptance of web 3.0 wouldn't have anything to do with the fact that your site is called web3beat (possibly web 3.0 beat?)?
I never said I loved web 2.0, I merely said that web 2.0's main emphasis was about defining what the web is, rather correcting the ill-conceived definition that the web is a stationary platform. The definition is merely to explain what it is and mark a change in design and utility concepts. There's nothing distinct that "web 3.0" adds.
Mobile technology was already being used during web 2.0, which I've heard as being pivotal in the definitions of web 3.0. Perhaps you can enlighten us by naming a few things that web 3.0 brings to the table that weren't already available in "Web 2.0". Again my belief in web 2.0 is more that it was an update to a concept to make it more relevant, rather then as a set instruction of what a site uses (eg: a checklist of technologies or practices required in order to be deemed 2.0). That's why to me web 3.0 makes no logical sense.
Justice will probably not allow the Yahoo / Google merge....
Television Spy, you're all wrong. My acceptance of web 3.0 has nothing to do with my blog (by the way, i just posted a comment explaining my reasoning). If you haven't done it already, I urge you to check out the wikipedia page for 'web 3.0", then "web 2.0" and you will notice there is nothing in "3.0" that mandates a chinese menu style list of things, definitionally, alright? By the same token, "web 2.0" (O'Reilly's definition especially) DOES contain a list of features, functionalities, or specifically the way you say it, "a set instruction of what a site uses (eg: a checklist of technologies or practices required in order to be deemed 2.0)". O'Reilly's definition actually does contain that checklist. But maybe you didn't it read it right.
Also, web 3.0 has nothing to do with mobile per se. Mobile is a channel, "web 3.0" is a marketing term for a set of processes, evolutions of technologies in the web (TBL calls it "semantic web", "data web", "intelligent web", etc.). Basically, if you don't think that the leap from 2.0 to 3.0 (ability to use intelligent agents that process data from 2.0 sites, etc.) has any value, then perhaps you're right. But again, don't use the term "logical" when referring to "web 3.0" - like I said, I see "web 3.0" as a marketing term, in much the same vein as 2.0 is. And by the way, why are we getting stuck in definitional issues?
There is nothing distinct that 3.0/semantic web/data web brings? Interesting, a LOT of people would tend to disagree. Do some research please.
By the way, If i wanted to hide behind the bushes I wouldn't have posted the link to my blog, but the truth is I have nothing to hide.
These days, the web standards are moving so fast - it's hard to keep up.
http://www.mrgtb.com
I think you guys should consider disallowing URLs in the comment sections, spam bots leaving generic 5 word replies and tag-lined with addresses are really starting to clog up the web...
Mike, deleted the ones I saw. It's a daily battle...
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Good coverage, Lidija. The Y!OS sounds like the start of a platform for the Web Desktop I've recently been talking about:
And apparently OAuth is the protocol that will be tying web desktop providers together.
http://socialstrategist.com/2008/09/19/the-web-desktop-what-it-is-what-it-needs
I think Yahoo understands Web 2.0 better than most internet companies out there. Just look at Yahoo answers for example. A really great community to share ideas.
Yahoo is planning to bring it's new face on the web very soon. I am looking forward to that ...
Making all of your customer lists, internal traffic intelligence and proprietary software open to outside developers seems like self-immolation to me. Did Dave and Tom end their presentation by dousing each other with gasoline and then setting themselves ablaze? Or is that only happening to Yahoo's stock price?
My point is that practitioners of Web 3.0 have to distinguish between creative business ideas and drinking the kool-aid.
The Web 3.0 characteristics looks very good. It's good to keep things organized.
Old wine in new wineskin?
To me the Yahoo! profiles is a good start towards a more relevant social web, but it doesn't fully realize the capability of social + semantic web.
http://threeminds.organic.com/2008/10/the_web_should_be_a_great_part.html
The Yahoo! profiles looks at what users are already doing, who they e-mail, who they IM the most. That is one new angle of what should be a developing social format: frequency. Whereas, places like Facebook and LinkedIn only make recommendations based on "who you know" (i.e. relationship).
An ultimate microformat in social connection should take a look at relationship, shared interests, and frequency of connection. I'd love to be able to filter out the social noise of the web based on how I'm already connecting to people, but also what I'm interested in... my goals, my passions.
At the Web 3.0 conference, Egosha Omigui stated that the next generation of search needs to show users answers to the questions they didn't even know to ask. I believe that the next generation social web needs to connect us with people we didn't even know we should meet.
Marta Strickland
Editor, ThreeMinds
http://threeminds.organic.com
Wine gets better when aged :)
Although yahoo claims to be "open", i can still see too many initiatives tightly bound to the yahoo environment itself. To me being open means providing compatibility with existing popular services. Initiatives like YQL are backward steps.
Thanks everyone for stopping by and commenting. I have to admit that it is unfortunate that there is such a divide on the labeling; some people absolutely hate the term Web 3.0, others think that it is significant. Either way, it has brought out an interesting conversation.
To me, while certainly there has been much innovation on the Web, the basis is still much as described by Tim Berners-Lee in 1998:
"The dream behind the Web is of a common information space in which we communicate by sharing information. Its universality is essential: the fact that a hypertext link can point to anything, be it personal, local or global, be it draft or highly polished.
There was a second part of the dream, too, dependent on the Web being so generally used that it became a realistic mirror (or in fact the primary embodiment) of the ways in which we work and play and socialize. That was that once the state of our interactions was on line, we could then use computers to help us analyze it, make sense of what we are doing, where we individually fit in, and how we can better work together."
Source
I'm pretty sure I emphasized that as far as I personally was concerned, this was more like part#3 of Web 1.0, i.e. Web 1.3 than an entirely new thing. We're adding hyperdata to go along with hypertext and allowing semantic applications to use the data but along with that considering massive scale, software as service/cloud computing, and other issues.
(Aside: some of the quotes attributed to me were probably by Tom, but that's fine ;)
Dave, thanks for stopping by. I thoroughly enjoyed your session. I have to admit though; I thought you talking about Web 1.3 was more in fun - given all the monikers out there. However, I absolutely agree with your point; it is all part the evolution of the Web, as opposed to an entirely new thing. As for the quote - I'm sorry if that is the case, checking and double checking seems to have failed me; I'm pulling out my notepad now ;)
I gave yahoo pipes a whirl. Interesting but not a major tool yet IMHO, perhaps others had a more favorable impression. Glad to hear they are working on improvements to that offering. I'd love to use yahoo pipes to stream headlines from selected articles on yahoo news into my web sites. It appears you can only create customized XML pages, not objects which can be pasted into an HMTL page. Hope that changes. If anybody know how to do what I am talking about with yahoo pipes, please give me shout--jjray7 at yahoo.com.
Is web 3.0 for real??? or it like a marketing gimmick? where can I get more information?
http://www.livbit.com
Regardless of what they actually call it web 3.0 or whatever, I'll certainly be having a long look at Yahoo! Profiles. I like the idea of a control panel for managing my social connections across the web.
Sorry, I just don't think we're at 3.0 yet.... but soon probably!
Momma
feature blogger at Engineer a Debt Free Life
http://engineeradebtfreelife.blogspot.com/
I hope Web 3.0 puts the onus of security on bad actors and the rest of us can stop using energy on unending ways to end spam, viruses, etc.
Financial crisis effect web 3.0 developments.
How can Yahoo have any say in anything? They are struggling to survive as a major player when they're squandering everything that they've created in the past 10 years.
in my opinon, although from the perpective of web 3.0, it might not be well aligned with Y!OS, it should contain many meaningful changes. : )
it seems that Yahoo is making an yahoo centric internet eco-system.
Me gusta la idea de hacer a Yahoo! mas social y espero que les vaya de maravilla en este proyecto.
Para mi siempre me ha parecido que Yahoo! es mucho mejor y mas completo que Google y espero que esta idea de Y! OS cale mucho en la gente...
Yahoo! forever
can't say no to the cool article.
thanks.
Will the present internet browsers work with Web 3.0? I use Front Page, but I don't have the ability let alone to do Web 2.0 style sites with it. Mind you, I am looking forward to Web 3.0.
Yahoo is trying to catchup but what is required is to lead from the front...
KD
Para mi siempre me ha parecido que Yahoo! es mucho mejor y mas completo que Google y espero que esta idea de Y! OS cale mucho en la gente...
Yahoo! forever