Web 3.0. Where will your designs lead?

The development of web 2.0, or at least the use of the term begs the question what will be developed for web 3.0?  What developments are hidden round the corner, and what will you need to know as a web designer to incorporate what web 3.0 will be about.

As web 3.0 is at the moment speculation, lets look at the definition of web 2.0 as stated in Wikipedia.

“Web 2.0? refers to a perceived second generation of web development and design, that facilitates communication, secure information sharing, interoperability, and collaboration on the World Wide Web. Web 2.0 concepts have led to the development and evolution of web-based communities, hosted services, and applications; such as social-networking sites, video-sharing sites, wikis, blogs, and folksonomies.”

One of the more down to earth theories of web 3.0, is that where as now to search for a film, a place to eat, and related transport for a night out, web 3.0 browsers will have moved up a gear in artificial intelligence, and do most of the searching for you, based around your preferences.

So instead of you doing the hard work, the web browser finds the cinema, the film, a restaurant based on your eating habits and preferences, and the time of the last bus or taxi cab number.  Taking this to its logical conclusion, the web 3.0 browser, will book the film, make the reservations, and possibly book the taxi to bring you back home.

This is one theory, and ties in with the Semantic web theory, where search engines evolve that little bit further and have a better understanding of related words to the searched for keyword.  This is the thinking of the World Wide Web’s inventor Tim Berners-Lee.

It is also an extension of what web 2.0 has brought us.  We specify prefences ourselves on social networking sites such as facebook, we customize where possible on applications and tools such as WordPress, and many applications make recommendations on either what other customers have bought, or our buying habits.

Other ideas from internet experts are:

The development of the web runs in ten year cycles.  The first cycle concentrated on back end performance, the second on the front end performance.  So the third?  Well many believe the back end will be enhanced to cope with developments in web 4.0.  Whatever they maybe.

Rather than seeing a web 3.0 we will see a web 3D, where using the web will be like playing in a massively multiplayer online roleplaying game, or MMORPG.  Users will create avatars and wander about the virtual world of the World Wide Web, experiencing the illusion of depth.

Everything will be connected to the internet, not just computers and phones, or the obvious equipment like televisons, but clothing, pens, pencils, everything.  This way, data on personal habits will be collected and stored, and used on the users behalf.  The debates on this baby, will be one for the history books should it ever come about.

True artificial intelligence will be created based on the technique of distributed computers.  This is where a major task is handled by several computers each doing a little of the task, which has been broken down for faster processing.  In web 3.0, we will see solutions to major problems, and new ideas emerging from thousands of computers connected via the web.

Many of these concepts do seem to be more at home in Star Trek than in the real world, but as a web designer, it is always good to have one eye on the future, as you could be creating it from a web design point of view.