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The Web is evolving at a rapid pace. In 2001 there was the crash and only a few years later Web 2.0 rose to become the dominant meme pushing the Internet into new frontiers.
During a Web 2.0 Summit talk, Tim O’Reilly talked about one of the emerging areas he calls “harnessing the collective intelligence.” This is a “far broader” understanding of user generated content, said O’Reilly. It is the basis of what many are calling the semantic Web and although the direct link wasn’t made, I suspect O’Reilly’s talk was inspiration for the New York Times to throw the term Web 3.0 out in a piece this Saturday.
In O’Reilly’s post Craig Kaplan said:
“Web 2.0 is just the froth before the wave. I believe networks of super intelligent cognitive communities are our future.”
Perhaps it is a bit early to start throwing around “Web 3.0” — many people are still grappling with 2.0 — but certainly finding a way to harness user generated content, as opposed to letting it run wild, is a step in a new direction. Like most things the 3.0 turn will happen without anyone taking notice and the watershed moment will only be decided after the wave crashes.
Lisa
I agree — the 3.0 reference seems somewhat forced and I’m not sure what compelled the Times to do it — probably to sell papers. But O’Reilly’s talk on “harnessing the collective intelligence” is interesting — and obviously related to NewAssignment.Net. I see this “extra layer” of meaning as something built on top of Web 2.0 — not a shift towards a “Web 3.0” (whatever that means). A lot of people feel the same as you — Web 3.0 is just market jargon.
Marketing-speak
Web 3.0 seems like meaningless marketing-speak to me. Sure, collective knowledge works on the web — but that’s not news, and I was stumped at why the Times thought it belonged on Page 1.