The name of the next Innovation Wave - Web 3.0?
I had the pleasure this week of sharing a platform, recently vacated by Jimmy Wales, with Euan Semple at the Online Information Conference 2007 in London. - Name dropping over 
My presentation Real Web 2.0 benefits [pdf] expounded the theory that the real benefits from the Web 2.0 revolution will come powering the next wave of innovation - Web 3.0.
Now there is a provocative label! - Already attracting comments on posts about my presentation. Remembering the miles and miles of blog pages about label names that ensued from the initial coining of the Web 2.0 label, I approached the use of its successor with a little trepidation. But hay Nova Spivack’s graph, from his post about the evolution of the WebOS, is a good one to build a description of waves of innovation upon, and I’ve never been one to duck attracting blog comments.
So what do I mean by Web 3.0? To me it is the next wave of innovation, built upon semantic web technologies, that builds a Web of Data between documents, data, concepts, identities, and actions, and intentions. - More descriptive but not as snappy as Web 3.0.
As Roo Reynolds says in his comment:
Maybe Web 2.0 has already come to mean what we know is happening already, and what is described in that graph as Web 3.0 could just be what comes next (though I doubt it is a comprehensive prediction). Web 4.0, of course, by extension becomes whatver comes after that.
Be it the Web of Data or Web 3.0 or Fliperty-Wibble, I don’t really care what naming consensus we end up with, but I do believe that there is another innovation wave approaching that will have sufficient impact for us to notice when it passes.
If asked to place a small wager on the next label though, I would put my money on Web 3.0 - but what do I know.
Do you think Web 3.0 will be the label of the next technology wave? Will the next wave be based on Semantic Web technologies? Does it matter what we call it?
Hoping to get acceptance in response to my questions, but more than happy to act a a lightening conductor for debate on the subject.
December 8th, 2007 at 12:09 am
Do you think Web 3.0 will be the label of the next technology wave?
Sorry, but I can’t see it ever sticking, other than in the short-term as a way of explaining whatever 2.0++ becomes. If that wave does turn out to be based on something specific, like Semantic Web technologies then the fact that we’ve both just used ‘Semantic Web’ to mean that bundle of stuff should suggest that ‘Web 3.0′ would be an ugly and unnecessary alternative.
In November 2006, Nova Spivack said
I think he’s right that we don’t need another label, and wrong that "Web 3.0" is less intimidating than ‘Semantic Web’. It’s less meaningful, which means people will still want to use "Semantic" to describe it.
But anyway, that brings us on to your second question:
Will the next wave be based on Semantic Web technologies?
Maybe. It’s one possibility, and they may at least play a part. Of course, the Wikipedia page on Web 3.0 contains a good roundup of some of the other potential directions, which include a move towards the web as a database, AI, 3D Internet, open identity, and more.
The thing that I can’t possibly agree with is Nova’s suggestion in the post you linked to above, in which he proposes that
I don’t think that’s at all useful there. There is no advantage to being able to say that ‘Web 4.0′ officially begins at the start of 2020 and Web 5.0 in 2030, ad nauseum.