Web 3.0 – Dream of Today is Achievement of Tomorrow
The concept of Web 3.0 is a re-branding of the semantic web for mass consumption & is the next step in Web evolution. Those who have discussed this next phase see it as an era where Web applications will (finally) start to do some seemingly clever tasks with the program itself discovering & make associations between far-flung bits of information. In other words, the mark-up language used to generate each Web page would be written to dynamically cross-reference countless other information sources. The content itself will be able to convey more meaning & interactivity than the relatively static sites of today.
Late last year I started seen some mention of the concept of Web 3.0 on various blogs. After all, such a designation is the logical next step in an era of everything “dot oh. Personally, I am not a massive fan of “dot oh” since it it forces individuals to think in a linear manner, which in turn forces individuals to think about steps necessary to transition to the next level, which in turn…. well, I digress.
The problem I see is that commercial library vendors have development cycles that move at glacier-like speeds. Our reliance on commercial vendors means that libraries will start seeing application which take advantage of semantic Web concepts some time after Web 4.0 talk is well underway.
For example, an attendee visiting a conference Web-site could select a session from the online program & immediately transfer the date, time, & location to an electronic calendar. The location of the conference itself including address, latitude, & longitude could be sent to a GPS gizmo. The names, biographies, & contact information of other attendees could be sent to an instant messenger contact list.
RSS FEED