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WEB 1.0

This was
the initial Web/Internet revolution. Two main outcomes occurred there:

There was a massive effort in
making available information to a general Internet surfing population.
Many web sites were data/information sources. These web sites had no
further goal than simply presenting information via Internet. Many
businesses and organisations used this to promote themselves and give
information on their products and services, or to present their cause.
Relatively fewer individuals, compared to the number of businesses and
organisations, used web sites to put themselves or their personal cause on
the World Wide Web (WWW). Flowing from this influx of information onto the
World Wide Web, search engines like Yahoo! and Google (plus a multitude of
others) came about to make finding information easier. The availability of
good search engines re-enforced the usefulness of placing information on
the WWW and the more information there was the more it attracted searchers
and users, using search engines. This was the information wave of Web 1.0,
which we can call Web 1.1; this wave is really continuing with more and
more types of information being made available, sometimes in near real
time. In other words, Web 1.1 is very much still with us, and happening
out there.

Related to the information wave
of Web 1.0, companies in particular took the information availability one
step further and created businesses on line. In many instances these
businesses were simply extensions (a different distribution channel) to
their existing businesses. In other case whole new business models
emerged, that works only because of the Internet and WWW. Examples are
Dell’s selling of computers, e-Bay auctions, and Amazon. Many
smaller and different business models also started to function, because of
the information availability and connectivity that the Internet and WWW
provided. These businesses continue to operate and grow successfully, and
one can anticipate a continued growth and increase in variety of business
models build on the Internet connectivity. This is the commercialisation
wave of Web 1; perhaps one should refer to this as Web 1.2

It should
be noted that there is a direct linkage between the technology and software availability,
which enabled Web 1.1 and Web 1.2. This means that one can define these waves
in terms of their underlying technology, but this does not really help us in
understanding what is happening (unless you happen to know the range of
technical labels). What is important to know is that like Web 1.0, Web 2.0 (and
subsequent Webs) also are enabled by specific
technological developments. In this article we are focussing not on the
technical dimension, but on what these waves are about.

But what is
Web 2.0 about?

Web 2.0.

Where-as
Web 1.0 was primarily dominated by institutional presence on the WWW, either
organisations such as governments, social institutions and businesses, the Web
2.0 revolution is a world wide social revolution, where individuals express
themselves on the WWW, and use the connectivity to interact socially.

While one
can argue that e-mail provided the first form of social interaction that used
the Internet, and that this had started in the mid 1980’s already, Web
2.0 is really a bit different in that it is centred on a continued presence of
individuals in various forums. The presence can be in different forms, like MySpace, which is place where people can write about
themselves, and receive and respond to comments about their own expression. Flicr is a site devoted to (photo-)graphic
self expression. (The existence and popularity of Flicr
illustrates the link with technology: Flicr is as
much a phenomenon of Internet as it is of the digital camera revolution. Flicr could not have been the success it is 10 years ago.) Facebook, and more edgy sites like AdultFinder,
have a different focus from self-expression: They have social interaction as a
goal, but uses self expression as part of what they do. Most of the sites like Facebook, Flicr, are community sites, that enable social interaction around a theme, and
actively cater for user created themes around which to interact. Google Groups, and Yahoo! offer social interaction in communities
where membership are more controlled, and represent the next generation after
the early

The two features
of Web 2.0 are therefore:

Web 2.1: The wave of self expression, either through writing (“blogs”), or through pictures or a combination of
these, of individuals building a WWW presence.

Web 2.2: The wave of social interaction enabled by social interaction
sites.

Where-as
one can think of Web 1.1 and Web 1.2 separately, as two waves, Web 2.1 and Web
2.2 are so closely intertwined as make the distinction meaningless; there is
only really only one Web 2.0.

Web 2.0
allows an individual to “broadcast” (make known) him or herself to
the World population on a scale so large as to be totally incomprehensible. The
shear numbers and variety of people one can get
to know and interact with, has increased the number of people the average
(Internet connected) person socially relates to in her or his lifetime, to
numbers that is simply mind boggling. The effect of this magnitude of global
socialisation on the social fabric of the real World,
has only started to emerge. The socially connected World has and is going to
have effects on values and norms, the spreading of that geographically and
ultimately on expectations and demands that politicians, corporations and
institutions will have to take note of. The Web 2.0 revolution is in its early
phases, and will accelerate as more people get connected to the Internet.

Web 3.0

Web 1.0 and
Web 2.0 are historical: The events and patterns that make up these waves are
visible and can be studied. Web 3.0 is not yet, so this section is a postulate
of what Web 3.0 will be about.

The
postulate around the Web 3.0 wave is that Web 3.0 will be about making
commercial use out of the social presence of a very large number of individuals
in Web 2.0.

The
“use” could take numerous forms, for example very targeted
advertising, or selling, where the advertising is based on an analysis of the
social profile of the individual as he or she presents themselves, and
interacts socially, on the Internet. Another form could of use could be to
aggregate the information content in their Web 2.0 profiles into information of
wider interest.

One of the
problems with Web 2.0 is the “uncontrolled” nature of the
information being presented by individuals. As it represent
their own personalities, likes and dislikes, their own thoughts in words and
pictures, there really is nothing to control. However, there is no particular
way to ensure, for example, consistency in labelling a photograph that an
individual puts on Flicr. A sunset photograph can
carry any number of labels, and need not reflect the name of the locality.
Should one be interested in retrieving information about that particular
locale, such a photograph will be “lost”, in the sense that the
owner saw something different in significance in the photograph and has not
identified the locality. Web 3.0 will need to find ways of overcoming these
individual idiosyncracies to extract comeercially usefull information.

An example,
of what I would call Web 2.5, and not fully Web 3.0, is the Tracks4Africa (www.tracks4africa.com) business. It
started from travellers to remote areas in Africa
sharing their stories and Global Positioning System (GPS) “tracks”
with each other. There tracks are recordings of the positions where they have
been; a track consists of a position recorded every few seconds. The tracks
contain position errors due to inaccuracies in satellite navigation. When
multiple track recordings of the same road are combined statistically, a very
accurate plot of the road can be created. In this way Tracks4Africa created
very accurate maps which surpass what any individual can create using his or
her own data. These maps are augmented by position descriptions of various
types, for example where fuel can be obtained.  In this way information relevant to
travellers is added to the map, making it a very useful planning and travel
guide, which is sold in appropriate retail outlets as well as on Internet. The
business model is that of aggregating the data of a large number of
individuals, and adding value (by appropriate quality control over what data is
used). The enforcement of standards for data used is an important component of
the success of this business model. The Tracks4Africa business model is perhaps
Web2.5 and not Web 3.0, as it actively promoted the submission of specific
types of data. It did not use data that individuals already published on
Internet as a basis for its product.
An example closer to Web 3.0, is Google Earth, which uses information
overlay layers sourced from different origins, including that of Tracks4Africa
(although it is not yet commercialised).

I believe
Web 3.0 would create a commercial layer on top of the existing social
expression web sites (Flicr, MySpace,
etc.) and through clever data mining build up commercial products or services. LinkedIn may be moving in this direction, with its
professional networking service. LinkedIn, Facebook and Flicr are already in
use by corporate human resource departments and appointment agencies to check
the background of prospective candidates and one can entertain services that
does this in a more automated and structured manner.

The
successful new generation WWW businesses will be the ones finding ways
commercialising the social presence of individuals and their social networking
in Web 2.0. While this Web 3.0 wave is forming, Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 will be by
no means dying off but will co-exist with Web 3.0.

© J P Strumpfer, 2008.