Web 3.0 just around the corner?
Posted by: Fiona in concepts, research, semantic web, web 3.0Several blogs have posted about Web 3.0 recently, most trying to come up with a central set of ideas about what it might be. For some, Web 3.0 = Semantic Web, for others, Semantic Web is just a part of it. My take on it that I wrote in October last year, if there is such a thing as Web 3.0, can be found on the About page of this blog:
- Semantic web: True write once, publish many: hamstrung until now by proprietary software, proliferation of XML schemas, and a lack of end-user tools.
- Metadata: Meaning and context within and between objects, new languages.
- Rich open data: Geotagging, eScience data for everyone
- Content anywhere, especially mobile
- Make your own software: bringing software and tool creation to the masses
- Two opposing ends: on demand anywhere (video, TV, radio, text), lightweight flexible architecture
Politics and governance issues will continue to evolve to bring;
- Ubiquitous Open Access
- Access to Knowledge (A2K) in the developing world
I think it is important to keep in mind the political and governance issues surrounding the web. The technical part of Web 3.0 is not possible without supportive research, funding, and policies. Additionally, if Web 3.0 impacts people’s lives by making communication and managing information easier, it has to include all kinds of knowledge (social, government, entertainment, scholarly) and be accessible by people all over the world regardless of language, socioeconomic and geographical barriers.
While I enjoyed all the good things the supposed Web 2.0 movement offered - community, interaction, etc - I am hoping that Web 3.0 will pay attention to the difficult issues around data, scholarly communication, and dissemination of research. Linked data is an area of research on this topic, but I hope to see more standards, policies and funding in this area.
A study of all the different ideas people have about Web 3.0 was posted by Jonas Bolinder, and fell into four categories -
- Semantic Web
- APIs and Web Services
- Mobile Web and other devices
- Implicit Web (personalisation and recommendation)
There’s a little bit of each of these in my view of Web 3.0
A post on Read/Write Web, Web 3.0 Through the Ages, sums up some of the current thinking around the term, valid or not and concludes -
“…the discussions we have about defining the next web help to solidify our vision of where we’re going — and you can’t get there until you decide where you want to go. “
I agree, and I’m interested to see where the discussions lead next.
Other recent posts on Web 3.0:
- It’s all still alpha in my eyes, Liako.biz
- After Web 2.0: WOW (Wide Open Web) - enough of version numbers for the web!!, Trends in the Living Networks
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April 29th, 2008 at 3:45 am
Very astute observations. I agree. However, I find it perplexing that academics tend to subscribe to the term “Semantic Web” whereas practitioners and technology experts tend to refer to “Web 3.0″ synonymously with Semantic Web. For example, the Journal of Cataloging and Classification (http://www.catalogingandclassificationquarterly.com/ccq43nr3-4.html) recently had an entire issue devoted to the Semantic Web - without one mention of the term “Web 3.0.”
Although the dichotomy in the literature is apparent, it’s interesting that for most of us, we associate Web 3.0 and the Semantic Web together. It’s not unlike a decade ago when we used the terms “Internet” and “Web” interchangeably — even though they are not.
In my opinion, Web 3.0 and the Semantic Web are separate entities. Tim Berners-Lee and the W3C envisioned for the Web to eventually become the Semantic Web. Standards such as RDF emerged as early as 1998, long before Web 2.0. Web 2.0 is not even mentioned in the W3C because it has no standards.
But I think it is important that librarians such as yourself join in (and even lead) the discourse, particularly since the Semantic Web & Web 3.0 will be based heavily on the principles of knowledge and information organization. Whereas Web 1.0 and 2.0 could not finely distinguish among Acetaminophen, Paracetamol, and Tylenol — hopefully Web 3.0 will.
April 29th, 2008 at 7:12 pm
Thanks for your comments Allan - it is interesting how the terms are being used - I wonder if a reluctance to use terms that are either more popular or more academic will cause some work to be missed.
Great analogy with searching for medication as an example of what the web will be able to do one day!
I’ve been meaning to read that issue of Cataloging and Classification but haven’t been able to find it nearby, It was later compiled as a book, Knitting the Semantic Web. I’ll post a review/summary if I can get a hold of either version.