By Arthur Leggett
The Internet, World Wide Web, as we know it is around 5,000 days old. Yet, the Internet has been adopted faster than any other information medium in history. The Internet took only 7 years to reach a 25% market penetration rate of the US population. In comparison, it took the telephone - 35 years; television - 26 years; radio - 22 years; and, the mobile phone - 13 years.
At the beginning of 2008, over 1.2 billion people were online globally. One-third of these online users are in Asia. With only 20% of the world's population online, online penetration rates for continents vary from a high of 70% of North America to 40% of Europe to 10% of Asia and a low of 4% of Africa. When you consider the power of population, Asia is the region to watch as Web 2.0 morphs into Web 3.0.
Over the past 5,000 days, the Web evolved from a source of information and sales to a dynamic digital media. Let's look briefly at how we got here and then let's visualize imaginatively where we are headed.
Web 1.0 was primarily a data repository, with a little e-commerce. Websites posted information on goods and services for sale, similarly to a Sears catalog. Consumers were limited to clicking on links and entering credit card numbers to receive goods. Except for maybe a bulletin board, very little interaction happened between seller-to-user or user-to-user.
Web 2.0 evolved from centrally controlled Web 1.0 to democratic user influenced websites. Web 2.0 allows users to not only buy goods, but it also frees consumers to create content and network. As a result, Web 2.0 is awash in content. Consumers can now produce content and place it on blogs, vlogs, podcasts and YouTube. As content becomes more liquid, which means it can be transferred to any media device, users gain more control over what appears on their screens.
Another strong part of Web 2.0 is social networks, which are built around instantly connecting with like-minded people. Instead of clustering in malls, on quads or at after-work watering holes, teenagers, college students and professions gather in artificial digital villages such as Myspace, Facebook and Linkedin.
As the Web evolves to 3.0, the 'semantic web,' it will move into the fourth dimension: Time. Web users will be liberated from the tyranny of time. Smart agents, also known as bots, that understand consumers' preferences, perhaps better than some consumers, will scour through massive Web data mines to meet users' needs and match preferred users' interests. Thus, consumers will not have to waste time searching for information. Computer-generated recommendations guided by Internet bots will anticpiate the right restaurants and vacations for users.
Web 3.0 will add personalization, with an understanding of particular user interests, so thorough that the web experience will revolve around the particular users' personal needs. A common example used to illustrate 'the intelligent Web' involves the universal use of intelligent appliances. In the not so far future, where all appliances are intelligent and networked, a refrigerator and microwave will be able to refuse to release and cook food in excess based on aggregated data on a specific user's dietary needs.
Last, I'm always open to connecting with kindred spirits and to imbibing disparate ideas. If you are close by, let's meet up for coffee or tea, swap stories, and share common interests. If you're around the world, we can be pen pals. Feel free to drop me an email. I respond to all emails within 36 hours.
Or maybe you found something "wrong" or "misspelled" on my blog? Or perhaps you have a suggestion or question? Tell me I'm wrong. Or tell me I'm right.
If you are curious about any of the ideas discussed here, I highly recommend an article in Scientific American (2001) by Tim Berners-Lee and that you watch Kevin Kelly: Predicting the next 5,000 days.
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