I found this video today where Eric Schmidt (of Google) answers the question “what is web 3.0?”. The guy (with The Christian Look) who asks the question boldly asserts that we know what web 2.0 is… do we? Anyway,
“Web 2.0 is a term that corresponds to Ajax.”
My standard answer to “what is web 2.0?” would be something along the lines of “it’s about control of users and data“, i.e. you build a big web site where users can generate the content, market it, and pray you’ll be among the 1% that are somewhat successful. Then you capitalize on providing pieces of that data. Google if anyone should know that. Ajax (or whatever you choose to call it) is a technology that is certainly a part of the modern web, but really, aren’t pastel colors and rounded corners more important for a web 2.0 site? even if you build it with old-fashioned server-side scripts only. Ajax as a technology is an enabler, not a necessity.
“[Web 3.0] is a different way of building applications.”
Yes, maybe that too. The web by the time 3.0 comes around is bound to have some new technology – or rather some new uses of the technologies we have. And this will allow us to make applications in a different way. So the statement is trivially true, but it does not provide a definition or even a speculation of what web 3.0 will be like. Let’s move on…
“Web 3.0 will be applications that are pieced together.”
This is more interesting. Like mashups? I’m sure all of us computer software users would like to have that. But I’ll believe it when I see it: applications from different vendors cooperating. So far unix system tools are the only ones to come close to this ideal. Unfortunately, I don’t think this is realistic for web apps.
“The applications are relatively small”
Now this is one of my favorite pet peeves. I nagged a bit about this on my CSS Nite presentation as well: Right now, many people, and especially Apple, are thinking of web apps/widgets/gadgets as small, more-or-less useless applications for trivial tasks such as analog clocks or calculators, or something that in the very least is separated from the tasks of “real” applications. I don’t agree with this at all…
Consider Mac OS with its Dashboard (even though it is a great reification of the ideal of web tech-based apps): you have a “normal” mode; your normal apps, running along in their windows as usual, and a “widgets” mode; your normal apps—no wait, these aren’t normal apps – these are widgets, special kind of apps made in a special, even naive, kind of way, to be run in a sandbox isolated from your normal desktop working environment. Even Opera has copied this thinking.
This is definitely how it is right now, so I can understand Apple’s decision. But I don’t think it’s how it will be, in the future, boys and girls. Web technology-based application will be just as common as other applications, I think. And in a few years they will be just as big as well. Many have tried to achieve this before – Java and Dotnet come to mind – but web technology has already won. I thought a lot about this, and I’ll write about it some time.
“The data is in the cloud”
I want some of what you’re smoking too dude, but there is no cloud. Data belongs to somebody, access is restricted, bandwidth is limited. The Internet is not a cloud (it’s a series of tubes).
There are a few more goodies in the video. Anyway, what will the web 3.0 be like? I mean, if you can figure that out now, you’ll be a billionaire. I think I have pretty decent idea, and I’ll continue writing about web 3.0 here in this blog. I think and hope that Google won’t be playing a big part in it. (They might be absorbed into something bigger, though).
