Web 2.0 was all about making the web more socially aware, however, was it really a good idea to start a versioning system for the Web?
When Web 2.0 was coined, I got quite excited about it, it was “Yes! this is a new way of thinking, this makes the web more personal”… but I did not thoroughly think through the versioning of the web. Applying 2.0 to the end of the term Web, meant that this is somehow new, somehow better and somehow a superset of what we had before… but it wasn’t, it just clumped pre-existing technologies together under one buzzword which businesses could use.
I fear that this is now happening with the term Web 3.0, which is seen as a swing towards the data. Unfortunately, the term Web 3.0 is being applied as a buzzword already (see the recent post by Paul Krill at InfoWorld titled “Salesforce touts Web 3.0 as platform as a service“, and the post by Simon Wardley titled “3 is the new 2…“).
I say that the Web is the Web, and it will always be the Web… whether it is a Document Web, a Social Web, a Data Web, a Platform Web or an Intelligent Agent Web. When it comes down to it, it will still be the Web, and documents will never be fully replaced by data objects, data objects will never be fully replaced by documents, the social apps won’t replace documents, and intelligent agents won’t replace search engines… things might change slightly, or become slightly more efficient… but essentially it is still the same.
Therefore, I don’t think it is clear when people start versioning the Web… which is why I have started categorising sub-webs, like I have done above. So these Sub-Webs are:
- Document Web: A Web of Documents with hyperlinks between. This Sub-Web provides a subjective view of information from the context perspective of the author.
- Social Web: A Web of Socially Aware Applications. This is done in either, or both Document and Linked Data forms. This Sub-Web provides a subjective view of information from the context perspective of the user or group profiled.
- Linked Data Web: A Web of Data Objects with relationship links between to enhance meaning. This Sub-Web provides an Objective View of information, ready for a contextual perspective of the user.
- Platform Web: A Web of Services in which you can run Web Applications on - and/or - against. This Sub-Web does not provide a view of information, but is an attempt to provide a distributed network of services capable of providing multiple subjective and objective perspectives.
- Intelligent Agent Web: A Web of Intelligent Software Agents. It is a Sub-Web because software agents will talk to each other in order to find out information. This Sub-Web communicates internally objectivity and subjectivity depending on the subjective desires of the user.
The important thing is that each of these Sub-Webs does not replace any other kind of Sub-Web. They can be used all together on the Web. No versioning required or desired.
However, this doesn’t mean that new technologies shouldn’t be looked into and implemented. They definitely should be looked into! I am just stating that I don’t believe versioning is the best way of labeling technologies, as it is pretty meaningless when something is not better or improved.
Any thoughts?…