Last week I wrote about the conference I am co-chairing next month out in Santa Clara, CA called the Web 3.0 Conference. In discussing Web 3.0 I mentioned that I believed Facebook was a Web 3.0 company. One of the commenters asked for clarification, saying that he thought Facebook was a poster child for Web 2.0.
And indeed the answer is, of course they are.
As I see it, Web 3.0 services are almost by definition also Web 2.0 services. But it occurred to me that for many, this “Web 2.0” term might be somewhat nebulous. Of course the interesting thing about Web 2.0 is that while, as far as I know, there is no official definition, we do, I think, generally know it when we see it.
But despite the fact that we may “get it” on a gut level, I think it is useful to think about what Web 2.0 really means in more formal terms, and so I have decided to offer up my own definition.
While Web 1.0 was about basic linking of pages, Web 2.0 is about making web sites more like applications. So to be a web 2.0 apps almost by definition requires use of AJAX and/or Flash for real application style interactivity. I think if your application does not do either, it’s hard for me to imagine calling it web 2.0. One of the biggest areas in this regard is the ability to interact with audio and video, leading some to erroneously suggest that Web 2.0 is about user generated content. Of course if you disagree with my definition, I’d love to hear alternate definitions.
And so of course, Facebook is a Web 2.0 service, and a very sophisticated one at that. But it is also a Web 3.0 service. And what does that mean? It means that the application is really a universe of objects that can be viewed, accessed and interconnected across applications and within Facebook across users. In other words, as I discussed last week, Facebook is about connections between objects not connections between pages. Applications from the web 2.0 generation have objects (essentially meaning they have databases) but they do not allow other applications to point to those objects, and those objects cannot point each other.
In other words, pre-Web 3.0 applications are highly siloed, whereas Web 3.0 applications seek in some way or another to be part of the larger mesh of data objects.
Tomorrow, more on why Web 3.0 is so important. Hint: it’s about money!
12 comments:
If web 3.0 means that web developers actually start to read computer science books and stop doing copy paste programming, than I am all for it.
Otherwise dear Hank, it is a waste of time, which is all about wasting money.
Hank,
One of the main descriptions I have read regarding Web 2.0 is precisely that the content barriers have been lifted and that any given user can help construct this "new" web.
Mainly, in Marketing whitepapers and definitions given there (you can check out Marketing Profs, i.e.) exclude the part regarding the app.
I believe that would be a mix of both definitions, like apps that allow users to give an input that they could had never done before.
so, in a nutshell:
*Web 2.0 = App + content by users.
*Web 3.0 = Apps + content by users + "money"
So if "Web 2.0 = App + content by users." then is craigslist a web 2.0 application?
Mmmm...Great point there.
I believe that this news support your point, I just read it in TechCrunch:
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/09/19/facebook-connect-spotted-in-the-wild-will-beacon-finally-die/
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Well, under that light, craiglist wouldn't fit the model of Web 2.0 fully, or meet it to a certain extent. That's why I didn't quite embraced the notion of Web 2.0 beeing based solely on web app but user content.
I don't think that Craiglist is a web 3.0, as far this discussion goes.
What do you think, Hank?
As far as I know, craigslist does not have api's or any mechanism for allowing its data to be accessible outside of craigslist. If they did, by my definition they would, perhaps, have to cbe considered web 3.0, but it would be painful :)
Lol!
Painful indeed!
I believe I get the point better now. I look forward to the post regarding the "money" factor on Web 3.0 tomorrow.
Great post, by the way!
It seems to me like you are muddling the definitions of Web 2.0 and Web 3.0. If Web 2.0 is about Ajax then it is about each page having unique components. But, you write: "It means that the application is really a universe of objects that can be viewed, accessed and interconnected across applications..."
Andrew Pass
http://www.pass-ed.com/blogger.html
Andrew,
I am confused by your comment. The quote you selected is the definition of web 3.0 not web 2.0.
Correct,
The difference, as we have discussed so far, is mainly that Web 3.0 ain't about a single app, but different apps that share the same data, doesn't really matter if it's Flash or AJAX.
I believe that is the main difference between Web 2.0 and Web 3.0
Web 3.0 = a web of widgets
Your definition of objects that can be externally accessed and repurposed fits the term widget quite well.
A more classical Web 3.0 definition would be in terms of semantic web, but in the end they both aim at achieving the same goal.
Koen,
Thanks for the comment. I think my definition of Web 3.0 includes the ideas of the semantic web without using the term, which refers specifically to RDF, OWL, and SPARQL. The semantic web is indeed about connecting objects across application silos. But most people are doing this without using the W3C tools to do it.
(I realize this is 16 months old, but thought I'd put in my two cents anyway)
I have to argue with you that APIs are a part of Web 3.0. If anything, they are detrimental to Web 3.0. You can't have a "universe of objects" when each object is defined by its own API. How would an application know that eBay, Amazon, Netflix, and IMDB are all talking about the same movie if each had its own API? This is why we *need* Semantic Web (or "Linked Data") techniques as a part of the next version of the web, whatever we call it. Otherwise, we're stuck in the old siloes, even if we can "mashup" some content using proprietary techniques.
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