The World Wide Web. You can find recipes, connect with old class mates and buy practically anything. There seems to be every bit of information available you could possibly want. In fact, there seems to be too much information.
Web statistics seem to be showing that the number of failed searches -where someone types a term in a search engine and doesn’t find what they are looking for or gives up before they do – is on the increase. Fear not. The people at the pointy end of the internet pecking order are already talking about and planning the Semantic Web – or Web 3.0 – which is meant to help us make sense of all of this data.
So what is Web 3.0 and what does it have to do with Twitter? To explain, let’s start back a few years…
Web 1.0
The beginning of the World Wide Web, which was really the internet for the masses, was all about links to pages. You would read a webpage and it would contain a link to another web page that you would then click on and visit. In this way you could “surf the web” and end up in all sorts of strange places. Very quickly this became pretty confusing as the amount of pages increased. Then Google came along.
Web 2.0
A few years ago, social networking burst onto the scene. This evolution gave users the ability to connect to other users directly and edit the content of certain types of pages to create social networks. Today there are many types of social networking sites, ranging from Facebook and MySpace to Digg and Delicious. People now have the power to connect with each other, vote on any topic in a myriad of ways and exercise freedom of speech in any way they desire.
Web 3.0
The next big evolution in the history of the web will be connecting data to like data or, put another way, ideas to ideas. The amount of data that exists is only going to get bigger. For our scientists, artists and thinkers to make use of this data they need to be able to connect concepts quickly. This is the basic premise of the semantic web. Connecting semantics. Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web, recently gave a talk at a TED conference that explains it in more detail.
So what does this have to do with Twitter? Isn’t Twitter just another social network? The answers to these two questions are: “A lot” and “Not really”.
Twitter is, in my view, the bridge between web 2.0 and web 3.0. Sure, on the surface Twitter looks like a way to connect with people and for Ashton Kutcher to stroke his own ego in 140 characters or less, but it is much, much more. The real difference between Twitter and, say, Facebook is that, on Twitter, you are not connecting with that old school friend whom you quickly realise you have little in common with and will never message again. You are connecting with people who share a common interest. You are connecting to ideas.
As Twitter has progressed, the owners have made it easier to search the constant stream of information. Topics can be tagged with the # symbol and then become instantly searchable. If you are into gardening, search for #gardening and find every person who is speaking about gardening everywhere in the world in real time. Try it out.
This is where Twitter gains its power and popularity. That’s why brands around the world are finally learning how to get involved in customers’ conversations, breaking down the wall that big brands often build and talking to individuals on their own terms.
The people who have been planning Web 3.0 have very big ideas. It will be amazing. Technically, of course, it will be way beyond what Twitter currently offers. But still, it’s strange how all of us seem to have kicked things off, typing messages of less than 140 characters.
Power to the people.
Mark Cameron is the creative director and a partner at Working Three. He has been developing digital strategy for a range of clients for the last eight years. More articles from him are on the Working Three blog
Photo Manipulation: Adam Walker
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Mark Cameron Reply:
May 15th, 2009 at 11:46 am
The semantic web will be much much greater than what Twitter can offer. Even though Twitter is full of some “gold diggers” it still interesting to see what can happen when people can connect in idea based groups.
In my opinion this little experiemnt shows just how much the world wants to be able to connect, share ideas and be heard. This is why web 3.0 will create a monumental shift in how we interact with information.
Thanks for the links and the comments.
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