But we're clearly now at a point where the financial problems of the world will have a big impact on where web technology is headed. Indeed, it looks like we've arrived at one of those giant inflexion points - where one web era is usurped by another.

Of course this last happened when Web 2.0 was coined by O'Reilly Media in about 2004. Luckily not long before that ReadWriteWeb was born (early 2003). So ReadWriteWeb has been documenting Web 2.0 ever since. Over the past couple of years, we've been focusing on other, perhaps more meaningful, trends - Semantic Web, recommendation technologies, websites becoming web services, Mobile Web and more. We've documented these meta trends in a number of big posts, some of which are in our Best of ReadWriteWeb page and copied here:

• Web Technology Trends for 2008 and Beyond
• What's Next on the Web: a ReadWriteWeb Toolkit for 2008
• 2008 Web Predictions
• 10 Future Web Trends
• 10 More Future Web Trends

The Welcome Return of Innovation

Although we'll continue to see the success stories of Web 2.0 grow and perhaps prosper - social networking, mashups, user generated content, etc - now is the time for innovation. I'm not stating anything revolutionary there, because it's an old cliche that tech innovation thrives in times of recession. Nat Torkington of O'Reilly Radar put this into the context of Web 2.0 recently:

"During boom times, companies direct development and occupy great talent with at best evolutionary improvements over the state of the art. Companies are great chasers of new things, but aren't great at making new things. A recession means technologists cease to be paid vast amounts to duplicate the work of others. The Great Tech Bust of Ought Two gave us 37Signals, Flickr, and del.icio.us and there's a strong argument to be made that many companies spent the next six years chasing what they created."

So we can expect to see a welcome return to web innovation in 2008/09, along the lines of what Flickr and 37Signals created back in the early days of Web 2.0. However, web entrepreneurs will need to make adjustments due to the economic climate. Many people have already noted that a re-focus on the bottom line of your business is key, which we discuss below. But perhaps just as importantly, as Nat pointed out, there is an opportunity to take more advantage of open source technologies and cheaper cloud computing infrastructure.

Yes, Tighten Your Belts, But Open Your Minds Too...

In the past week some high profile VCs have been preaching belt tightening as the primary response to the economy. More than a few people have expressed cynicism about this advice, given the hype and party-throwing days of Web 2.0. New York VC Fred Wilson wrote a post today, partly in response to a comment Bernard left on his blog, in which he defends the advice he and other VCs have been giving since the financial crisis got going. Basically that advice has been to batten down the hatches, reduce spending and, in Fred's words, "act responsibly and make sure we all survive to fight another day".

It's all common sense advice, especially since Web 2.0 has been predominantly about consumer apps. I'm certainly no economist, but it makes sense that in a tight credit market, consumer spending will reduce - which will impact heavily on consumer web apps, and trickle through to other parts of the ecosystem.

But I'd love to see technologists, entrepreneurs and VCs take a longer term view of this crisis as well. Sramana Mitra wrote a great post at Forbes outlining some of the opportunities for innovation. In an "Open Letter to the Leaders of Silicon Valley", Sramana first gave some background on the innovation that led to Web 2.0 and followed up with a challenge to create technology for education, health care, social security. As an example, she wrote about these opportunities in healthcare and education:

"As the smart-phone movement marches on, led by Steve Jobs' iPhone, can we not create seamless bridges between doctors, patients and insurance providers that can reduce the $250 billion expenditure in health care administration?

And on the Internet, can we not create a body of standardized content and methodology for teachers all over the U.S.--or the world--that includes parents in the process and engages children via "edutainment," the same way MySpace and "World of Warcraft" engage kids?"

Tim O'Reilly has been on a similar mission ever since his speech at the Web 2.0 Expo earlier this year, for startups to tackle 'big challenges'. His core message is to "work on stuff that matters."

What's Next... Let Us Know in the Comments!

We at ReadWriteWeb have been covering mainstream web applications and things like health 2.0 this year. But we've only just scratched the surface, just as have most startups and Internet companies. As the troubles in the economy begin to affect the tech world, we'll be re-doubling our efforts to document what we hope is an exciting new era of web innovation. There are tough times ahead, but equally there are opportunities.

In the best spirit of Web 2.0, let's start by asking you to comment on what opportunities in web technology you forsee over the next year or so. Please leave a comment and let's get a healthy, optimistic - but realistic - discussion started. To provide a bit of inspiration, I've embedded below our stock presentation What's Next on the Web? Web Technology Trends for 2008 and Beyond (circa December '08).

Note: click here and then click 'full' (bottom right) to view full screen and enable the links inside the presentation.

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!

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

But we're clearly now at a point where the financial problems of the world will have a big impact on where Web Technology is headed. Indeed, it looks like we've arrived at one of those giant inflexion points - where one Web era is usurped by another.

• Web Technology Trends for 2008 and Beyond
• What's Next on the Web: a ReadWriteWeb Toolkit for 2008
• 2008 Web Predictions
• 10 Future Web Trends
• 10 More Future Web Trends

The Welcome Return of Innovation

Although we'll continue to see the success stories of web 2.0 grow and perhaps prosper - social networking, mashups, user generated content, etc - now is the time for innovation. I'm not stating anything revolutionary there, because it's an old cliche that tech innovation thrives in times of recession. Nat Torkington of O'Reilly Radar put this into the context of web 2.0 recently:

"During boom times, companies direct development and occupy great talent with at best evolutionary improvements over the state of the art. Companies are great chasers of new things, but aren't great at making new things. A recession means technologists cease to be paid vast amounts to duplicate the work of others. The Great Tech Bust of Ought Two gave us 37Signals, Flickr, and del.icio.us and there's a strong argument to be made that many companies spent the next six years chasing what they created."

So we can expect to see a welcome return to web innovation in 2008/09, along the lines of what Flickr and 37Signals created back in the early days of web 2.0. However web entrepreneurs will need to make adjustments due to the economic climate. Many people have already noted that a re-focus on the bottom line of your business is key, which we discuss below. But perhaps just as importantly, as Nat pointed out, there is an opportunity to take more advantage of open source technologies and cheaper cloud computing infrastructure.

Yes Tighten Your Belts, But Open Your Minds Too...

In the past week some high profile VCs have been preaching belt tightening as the primary response to the economy. More than a few people have expressed cynicism about this advice, given the hype and party-throwing days of web 2.0. New York VC Fred Wilson wrote a post today, partly in response to a comment Bernard left on his blog, in which he defends the advice he and other VCs have been giving since the financial crisis got going. Basically that advice has been to batten down the hatches, reduce spending and, in Fred's words, "acting responsibly and making sure we all survive to fight another day".

It's all common sense advice, especially since web 2.0 has been predominantly about consumer apps. I'm certainly no economist, but it makes sense that in a tight credit market consumer spending will reduce - which will impact heavily on consumer web apps, and trickle through to other parts of the ecosystem.

But I'd love to see technologists, entrepreneurs and VCs take a longer term view of this crisis as well. Sramana Mitra wrote a great post at Forbes outlining some of the opportunities for innovation. In an "Open Letter to the Leaders of Silicon Valley", Sramana first gave some background on the innovation that led to web 2.0 and followed up with a challenge to create technology for Education, health care, social security. As an example she wrote about these opportunities in healthcare and education:

"As the smart-phone movement marches on, led by Steve Jobs' iPhone, can we not create seamless bridges between doctors, patients and insurance providers that can reduce the $250 billion expenditure in health care administration?

And on the Internet, can we not create a body of standardized content and methodology for teachers all over the U.S.--or the world--that includes parents in the process and engages children via "edutainment," the same way MySpace and "World of Warcraft" engage kids?"

Tim O'Reilly has been on a similar mission ever since his speech at the Web 2.0 Expo earlier this year, for startups to tackle 'big challenges'. His core message is to "work on stuff that matters."

What's Next... Let Us Know in the Comments!

We at ReadWriteWeb have been covering mainstream web applications and things like health 2.0 this year. But we've only just scratched the surface, just have most startups and Internet companies. As the troubles in the economy begin to affect the tech world, we'll be re-doubling our efforts to document what we hope is an exciting new era of web innovation. There are tough times ahead, but equally there are opportunities.

In the best spirit of web 2.0, let's start by asking you to comment on what opportunities in web technology you forsee over the next year or so. Please leave a comment and let's get a healthy, optimistic - but realistic - discussion started. To provide a bit of inspiration, I've embedded below our stock presentation What's Next on the Web? Web Technology Trends for 2008 and Beyond (circa May 08). Indeed it's time we updated this presentation, so your suggestions welcome!

Note: click here and then click 'full' (bottom right) to view full screen and enable the links inside the presentation.

Next Gen Apps Won't Be Pushed Around By the Browser

The invention of the browser was a huge boon to the internet and a substantial amount of computing now goes on through that interface we've grown to love. The internet is not a place where innovation takes a break, though, and a new generation of applications are emerging that have a different relationship with the web browser.

From taking control of the browser to connecting to the web outside of it, there are a number of new strategies being implemented by startups these days. In the following post we discuss seven different ways that new apps are telling browsers "you 'aint the boss of me now!" Some you'll be familiar with, but some you may not be.

Wikis Are Now Serious Business

Only a handful of years ago, it was common to hear people laugh at Wikipedia. Anyone can edit it! How could you take it seriously? These days, just as blogs are, wikis are on their way to winning a reputation as serious publishing platforms.

Free hosted wiki provider Wetpaint announced last night that it's now raised a total of $40 million in venture capital. To celebrate this major financial validation of the wiki world, we thought we'd offer a brief survey of some of the most interesting ways that wikis are being put to serious use today.

How to Make Facebook Useful Again

Oh the heels of some of Facebook's missteps (ahem, Beacon) and the proliferation of a myriad of useless, silly, and time-wasting apps, some former Facebook users decided to quit the site for good this year. However, a handful of early adopter angst doesn't have Facebook worried. Why is that? Because Facebook has a whole generation of users who grew up using their site for everything social back when it was just a way to network with their high school or college friends. So what are the everyday Facebook users doing that keeps them engaged in the service? It's not throwing sheep, apparently. For many Facebook users, there are still useful apps to be found and ways to use the service that the rest of us could learn from.

See also: Why There Should Be Web Search on Facebook and Facebook Censoring User Messaging: Spam Prevention or Unaccountable Control of Conversation?

Google Health Launches - Cautious, Non-Innovative Entry into Health 2.0

This week Google announced the public availability of Google Health, after initially launching as a closed beta back in February. It is described as "a safe and secure way to collect, store, and manage [your] medical records and health information online" and is being positioned as a way for users to control their own medical records.

Google Health is a decent entry into the game-changing (and potentially hugely profitable) world of health 2.0. But in comparison with other health startups, Google Health has a limited scope and is not as innovative a service as we've come to expect from Google...

The Future of Mobile Social Networks: 4 Promising Services

Recently we discussed some of the problems plaguing mobile social networks. These problems include location, marketing strategies and compatibility issues. Our readers also contributed their thoughts on hardware compatibility and GPS. While no network is perfect, in this post we profile some of the key players in the market. Here's a look at four mobile social networks that may have what it takes.

SEE MORE WEB APPS COVERAGE IN OUR WEB APPS CATEGORY

Web Trends

Report: The Mobile Web is the New Hangout

According to Opera's survey of the more 11.9 million Opera Mini users in March, almost 41% of mobile traffic now goes to social networking -- up to 60% in some countries, including the US. Compare that to about 6% of total web traffic for social networks outside of the mobile web. That's not overly surprising, though, given the recent proliferation of new smartphones aimed at consumers (or at least phones that can view the full web), made ultra-chic over the past year by Apple's iPhone. Says Opera, 3/4ths of mobile web traffic is now to the full web, rather than WAP or .mobi sites, which are quickly becoming out-moded.

See Also: To Beat Google, Beat Google to the Mobile Web

Do you use the mobile web? Remember to vote in our poll below.

Social Media U: Take a Class in Social Media

Social media. Web 2.0. You know what these things are and you take advantage of them every day on the net. Whether you're socializing on Facebook, updating Twitter, or just adding a new bookmark to Ma.gnolia, social media has become an integral part of our daily lives. However, that doesn't mean that it's something that everyone innately understands or knows how to use - especially when it comes to using it for marketing, PR, or other business-related purposes. That's why many of today's colleges and universities are now offering "social media" classes as an option for their students.

How to Use Social Media for Social Change

Did you participate in the Twit-Out this week? Do you even know what that is? To get you up to speed, a handful of Twitter users, fed up with the regular outages of their favorite service, decided to band together to show Twitter some tough love by boycotting the service for a day. (Unfortunately, despite having fewer users on the service, Twitter still went down). However, in light of recent world events, it's a shame that the cause the tech community has chosen to rally around is that of Twitter's instability. Aren't there more important things going on right now?

The URL Is Dead, Long Live Search

Last week Josh Catone was watching TV and saw something that really caught his eye. It was a commercial for Special K, the breakfast cereal from Kellogg, and rather than end with a plug for the product's web site -- SpecialK.com -- it advised people to search Yahoo! for "Special K" instead. He started to wonder two things: 1. is Yahoo! paying Special K for tack-on advertising? and 2. has searching really become so natural that it is more effective to tell people to search for your site than it is to tell them to visit directly?

SemTech Panel: Taking Semantic Technology to the Masses

How will the Semantic Web make the jump to the mainstream? That was the topic of a panel at the SemTech 2008 Conference that happened this week in San Jose. The panel was moderated by Carla Thomson from Guidewire Group and featured Josh Dilworth from Porter Novelli, Tom Tague, who heads the Calais initiative at Reuters, and Mark Johnson, who is a product manager at Powerset. This post is based on notes from that panel.

See also: SemTech Panel: Investor Opportunities and Pitfalls

SEE MORE WEB TRENDS COVERAGE IN OUR TRENDS CATEGORY

That's a wrap for another week! Enjoy your weekend everyone.