Does the Semantic Web = Web 3.0?

John Markoff's New York Times article discusses the term "Web 3.0" and equates it with the next evolution of the Web, in which he predicts a move towards more intelligent applications.

First of all I want to say that I hope the use of the term "Web 3.0" in the article doesn't distract from the real story here. Because there is actually a story -- the Web is gradually evolving into a more intelligent medium. One of the key enabling technologies that will make this possible is the emerging Semantic Web.

I agree with Markoff that the Web is moving towards a new era of more intelligent apps. I also think that this intelligence will be enabled by adding more semantics to the data. But does this evolution qualify for a new name like Web 3.0? For that matter, what does the term Web 2.0 refer to, while we're on the subject?

If you believe that the term Web 2.0 refers to something distinct from the Web we already had before that term was originated, then yes, the Semantic Web is Web 3.0. But from another perspective, Web 2.0, Web 3.0 or Web 12.0 will not be separate from the Web we already have (Web 1.0) -- it's all just one big Web. All this technology is connected to the same network.

I think Web 2.0 has taken on a certain meaning over time -- focused around application interoperability on the Web using mashups, APIs and widgets, and perhaps also social features like tagging. But I remember when the term Web 2.0 first came out -- people thought it was unnecessary and railed against it in fact. Today it has become an industry standard term. So you never know, maybe the term Web 3.0 will catch on.

Web 3.0 is about making all this technology and content smarter -- by adding semantics to the data (using the Semantic Web and microformats, etc.) and by adding more smarts to applications so that they can do a better job of helping humans (natural language search, semantic search, recommendation agents, etc.).

So while we probably don't need another label -- I would at least say that "Web 3.0" is less intimidating than the term "Semantic Web" to many. On the other hand, I can see a potential confusion arising from terms like Web X.0 as well.

Regardless of what we call it however, I'm just interested in bringing more semantics to the Web. This is a long-effort -- it's a marthon not a sprint -- and it is already happening, and will continue to happen. It's a technological evolution that must happen in fact. Because the only other alternative to making the Web smarter would be to have computers that are a million times faster than those we have today. Rather than waiting for that to happen, we can just add a little more semantics to today's data and applications to get big benefits. Those of us working with RDF and the Semantic Web have seen the proof of this. In time, so will broader sets of users and developers.

Comments

[Yihong Ding]

I am afraid to say that Web 3.0 may not be a good term to reference the Semantic Web. As I understand, the Web 2.0 moves the traditional World Wide Web towards a field of more collabrative ways of knowledge sharing. Thus, the movement of Web 2.0 activities leads the Web to its social aspect. This is, however, not the goal of the Semantic Web. The Semantic Web leads the Web to its aspect of machine-understanding, i.e., the machine side of the Web instead of the human side of the Web. Therefore, I'd rather view the research of Web 2.0 and Semantic Web being two different directions of Web evolution, while they can be well integrated together to compose a new next-generation of the Web.

I am currently studying on this field and would like to share more thoughts with you people, who are also interested in it. Some of my initial thoughts are on my blog (http://yihongs-research.blogspot.com/) and I will update them and post new thoughts from time to time. Welcome to leave your comments if you wish.

[Bill]

I read the NY Times article with interest and as a result have come to find this blog.

The article was my first reference to term Web 3.0, although I am familiar with work being done on Semantic Networks. The article was helpful in putting that work into the context of the Web. It helped, in my mind, position Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 as foundational to the next step, the so-called Web 3.0.

With respect to the question presented in this entry (Does the Semantic Web = Web 3.0?) I accept this as one interpretation. However, the NYT article suggested to me that Web 3.0 was about acquiring actional information, and in order to do that the semantics of the content needs to be established. As the article made reference to such services as Digg, where people establish the semantics, it struck me that establishing a semantic foundation might be a Web 2.0 artifact, and so I wonder then if Web 3.0 is about standardizing semantics (possibly into multiple domains) but more importantly, leveraging the meaning to solve problems.

My initial thoughts are on my blog (http://hertha1.blogspot.com/2006/11/web-30.html)