The next decade of Web: Web 3.

Course: Management Information Systems

Instructor: Dr. Prithwis Mukerjee

Muppana Sarat C Arun

Vinod Gupta School of Management, IIT Kharaghpur

Abstract - The rapid revolution in the internet changed the way organizations do their
businesses and lifestyle of individuals. The future of internet is that applications will be
able to understand the content of the web pages making the data linked, what we call
as the semantic web or web 3.0. This creates an opportunity for the businesses to
target this emerging environment. This paper discusses (i) evolution of web and future
of web 3.0, (ii) how web 3.0 impacts businesses (iii) and focus on various technologies
like semantic web, mobile web and video web that will make web 3.0 a reality.

Keywords – Web 3.0, Web 2.0, Future Internet, Semantic Web, E-Commerce, Social Media

1. Introduction

With the huge availability of internet worldwide, we have seen many changes in the digital world
which impact us in the day to day life. The internet has seen many players with new ideas, new
ventures showing that there is never an end to the virtual reality. Five years ago, a man named Dale
Dougherty thought of an idea called Web 2.0, and it is immediately implemented. This idea created a
huge online revolution.

Web 2.0 was implemented in almost all internet sites, technologies and services and it promoted
collaboration and sharing of information. To name a few blogs, wikis, tags , RSS feeds, del.icio.us,
YouTube, Facebook. These services represent just a growing platform and it is not the final product.
So what is in the future of these sites and services? Here comes the new evolution Web 3.0. So what
does Web 3.0 really mean and what does it look like in the future? These thought provoking questions
bring many ideas and expectations of how Web 3.0 will really impact the next decade to come. Web
2.0 is also a work in progress. But so many new technologies relating to Web 3.0 are already in
development in universities, in corporations like Google, IBM and a huge buzz about Web 3.0 in blogs
and startups.

So what exactly is Web 3.0 and why is it so important? To many of the people, Web 3.0 is called the
Semantic Web, a term coined by Tim Berners-Lee, the man who created the World Wide Web. Many
experts of internet think semantic web is like a personal assistant, where machines and applications
can understand the context of the search, making the search more efficient and accurate. It is
compared to a giant database. Web 2.0 made people come together through internet and web 3.0 will
make information come together using internet and semantics. The more you use the Web, the more
accurate and relevant information you can get from the search as applications will start interpreting
the semantics. Not only this, there are many areas like social media, video web, mobile web,
education in which web 3.0 will create a huge impact and change the economic, social development
of the world. Before we look into all of these applications of Web 3.0 we will see in brief, the history
and the current developments in the industry.

2. Web 1.0 to Web 3.0

We heard Web 2.0 many times and it is completely over the Internet. But what does “2.0” mean?
What is the past of it and what‟s in the future?

Web 1.0 was the Information web. The information was created by some companies and informative
people and it was accessed by the users and consumers. It is a system of interlinked, hypertext
documents accessed via the Internet. With a browser, user can access the information, multimedia
and can navigate from page to page. There is no interaction and also the internet speeds were slow.
Indeed it is just content distribution and it was not related to profit.

Web 2.0 is the social web. A second generation of web which consists of social networks, blogs, web
forums and communities and collaboration and sharing of information takes place between users.
People can create information which other people can use and companies create platforms where
user can create information and media for other people (e.g. YouTube, Wikipedia, Flickr, Blogger)

Web 3.0 is the intelligent web. Highly specialized information silos, moderated by a cult of
personality, validated by the community, and put into context with the inclusion of meta-data through
widgets. As described by Steve Spalding [1].

Web 3.0 is defined as the creation of high-quality content and services produced by gifted individuals
using Web 2.0 technology as an enabling platform. By Jason Calacanis [2].

Source: Gary Hayes 2006

CEO of Google, Eric Schmidt [3], at the Seoul Digital Forum described that while Web 2.0 was based
on Ajax, Web 3.0 will be "applications that are pieced together" - with the characteristics that the apps
are relatively small, the data is in the cloud, the apps can run on any device (PC or mobile), the apps
are very fast and very customizable, and are distributed virally (social networks, email, etc.)

Computers and applications will be able to understand the meaning behind the information in the
HTML tags. To make it simple, Web 3.0 is the study of meaning of inter-linked webpages accessed
through Internet. Using the semantic web, one can just type in the browser „Find information about
places within 5 km where I can watch Avatar movie , play bowling and eat in McDonald‟s, This is
possible because all the information related to search can be found in the mall or company‟s website
and information can be easily interpreted and manipulated by the semantic applications. This is Web
3.0. People can interact with the applications built by other people, companies build platform that let
people share information, thereby increasing the association between people and data. (E.g.
Facebook, My Yahoo, Google Maps).

So we can clearly see that context is the differentiating factor of Web 3.0. It has the capability to use
unorganized information in the internet and structure it depending on the context of the user.
Information sites on the web will be structured, linked with the help of semantic technologies and
natural language processing technologies .These can index data, and establish relationships between
various data elements.

3. Recent developments in the industry

Google Squared: This is a Google‟s version of semantic web search. Instead of providing list of data
as normal search engines do, it will give columns of data, each cell corresponding to the relevant
search. You can also add columns of your interest. For example, you can see the search results of
„VGSOM‟.
Google Wave: Google Wave is a web based computing platform and communications protocol,
designed to merge key features of media like e-mail, wikis, instant messaging and social networking.
[4]. A wave is shared. Any participant can reply anywhere in the message, edit the content and add
participants at any point in the process. Then playback lets anyone rewind the wave to see who said
what and when. Google Wave uses the Jabber Protocol which is called XMPP. It is an Open protocol,
anyone can implement this protocol.

OpusUna: IBM started working on Web-conferencing platform dubbed OpusUna, which offers all
participants the ability to collaborate using the same Web pages featuring audio and video. It is based
on AJAX technology and it enables participants to communicate and contribute content within the
same browser space, incorporating audio, video, widgets etc. For example, collaboration on patient
care is done through sharing of medical images.

Swotti: Swotti is a new semantic search engine that collects opinions about products to help people
with purchasing decisions. It gives them the good and bad experiences of others as the site gathers
reviews and feedbacks from across the web and categorizes them to provide more compact
information about the product he/she is interested in.

Swotti gathers review from many sites and gives a compact differentiation between products

Social Networking: Facebook and Twitter are the key players in the social networking side of Web
3.0. Google‟s OpenSocial will bring social sites together with useful applications. Twine is the next
generation of social bookmarking. It tries to understand people‟s interests and provides more
appropriate content. The search activities in the browser help Twine tweak user‟s feed so that it
contains recommendations based on the interest of the user. Wink is a people search engine for
blogs and social networks.

Tripit: Tripit offers a personal, full-service travel assistant. It compiles itineraries, from transportation
to dinner dates, weather reports, suggests local attractions and more. It also inserts a bunch of useful
information like weather, maps and directions to help all the busy travellers.
4. Business Aspects of Web 3.0

Benefits for Customers: The main benefit the customers can draw from Web 3.0 is the
personalization of interaction between their applications and them. Companies will take the advantage
of many features of Web 3.0 to offer better services and products to customers and thereby building
relationships with them. The impact will be clearly seen in social networking and mobile web, which
are the main sources for accessing and creating multimedia content. The presence of Web 3.0 in
entertainment also brings variety of things to users like recommendation of programs using the user‟s
past history and preferences. Communication between devices is also a great challenge in Web 3.0.
For example, we have seen examples like (i) a smartphone recommending parks and hotels based
on the location, and (ii) interaction between smartphone and personal computer to log on to the work.

Benefits for Business People: Companies can build intelligence in to their systems and processes
using the Web 3.0 techniques to improve their efficiencies and implement new strategies. Business
decisions will be based upon the data gathered by the intelligent devices that function both in the
internal and external environment. Within the company there may be multiple roles like analysis, data
mining, and reporting which are essential in making decisions. The ability to access large data and
keeping it into a semantic application will enhance value to the information of company and make
employees to perform their roles more efficiently.

Advice for Business Organizations: Enterprises and Organizations are provided with numerous
opportunities by Web 3.0 to become better off. Companies should start improving and modernizing
their infrastructure to suit the needs of Web 3.0. Application development professionals can target
areas where semantic technologies can be used to solve the problem of lack of information. By
examining the sources of data, businesses can reengineer the workflows or develop new models by
incorporating intelligence into the systems. Introducing a new data management project to bring
consistency across various data sets will largely help the operations of the organization. Building
semantic search applications also minimizes the time for processes. Companies can deploy platforms
that move organizations data from individuals‟ pc‟s into a repository and apply semantic technologies
in a future period. Improving customer satisfaction using the user‟s information like location, behavior,
preferences which are unavailable previously is possible with the help of semantic search engines.
Organizations should be extremely careful about the security and privacy of data as the data is open
due to the semantic technologies. They should make their customers believe that their data is safe
with the organizations by clear written statements and also by improving the security issues of the
organization.

Practical Examples of Web 3.0 in Businesses: Amazon has a unique platform letting the user to
create a book and launch into the world. Amazon has its presence in the virtual world also. Salesforce
is best known for web based CRM applications. They use enterprise cloud computing allowing the
developers to make their own applications. Free flow of information among the users and developers
made it grow strong in the industry. These are a few but thousands of startups and applications based
on Web 3.0 are more to come in the future.

5. Impact of Web 3.0 in various fields and applications

Semantic Web: The technologies which will drive the Web 3.0 include Resource Description
Framework (RDF) and Web Ontology Language (OWL). RDF as described by Tim Berners-Lee‟s
notion of „linked data‟ is used to link data from different sites and repositories and brings connectivity
to all types of information sources and devices. Web Ontology Language can interpret and process
information contained in the documents. These approaches enable the search engine to give results
based on the meaning of the sentences rather than keywords. Software will be more intelligent than
today. Some of the intelligent systems like del.icio.us and Digg are indeed the future of the semantic
web. One capability of semantic search is to provide more information than a regular search engine.
Another one is to help the user by providing more related searches. The second capability is best
offered by the Microsoft‟s Bing search engine. TipTop is a search engine for classifying tweets.

Real Time search engine TipTop combines language technologies with search
to classify Tweets into Positive, Negative and Neutral, as you can clearly see above

Another example is SenseBot. It is a semantic search engine that generates a text summary of
multiple Web pages on the topic of search. It uses text mining and multidocument summarization to
extract sense form Web pages and present it to the user in a coherent manner. Web search engines
which apply semantics have a big role to play in the future development of the Web.
Web 3.0 in Web 3D: Most 3D technologies like online games, 3D objects on websites are there for a
decade but in the last 4 years this has become increasingly significant. 3D applications like Google
Earth, Microsoft Virtual Earth have gained huge public response.

Virtual Earth from Microsoft

3D online games like World of Warcraft have more than 8 million online gamers. These games which
are called Massive Multi-player Online Role Playing Games(MMORPG) have significantly changed
the way people communicate in live. Second Life is a virtual world where the viewer enables its users
to interact with others through avatars, socialize with others, participate in individual and group
activities, and create and trade virtual property and services with one another. Corporations and
professionals create beautiful environment to sell and market their real and virtual products.

Social Media: After a lot of discussion on web 3.0, we see that the greatest impact will be on the way
we use social networking sites and social media.
Now-a-days we can see that almost every device like mobile phone, television, gaming devices can
access internet. Even devices which don‟t have web browser, like Xbox have support for Twitter and
Facebook. Another important thing is the mobile web which is why Twitter has become so popular.
There will be huge changes in the mobile phones, driven by the social networking sites. Location
based social networking has gained momentum. It gives companies the advantage to advertise based
on the location. Services like Ning help companies and individuals to build their own social networks.
Televisions also provide social networking opportunities. The Orange IPTV platform comes with
Twitter feeds which run on the side of the program. Verizon‟s FiOS TV provides Facebook and Twitter
updates to its subscribers. Next, there is media-centric web where you can find media using other
media. The future of social networking and media sites is an indication that the future web will be
more sociable, intelligent and structured.

Augmented Reality: With the increasing developments in facial recognition, there can be augmented
reality applications on the mobile through which you can get the profile of the person using their
picture. The application finds/compares images across the social networking and other websites using
the facial recognition software.

Augmented reality application which gives the profile of the people

Innovation in educational resources:

 See places without actually going there: Take the example of trans-Siberian online in the
creative internet [5]. With a mix of Google maps and YouTube video people can travel the
length of the route with real video and audio.
 To overcome stereotypes: Creation of images and avatars (e.g. in SecondLife) helps
students to overcome stereotypes by inducing roles plays on to them.
 To develop virtual simulations: Virtual simulations can be developed for students to simulate
the experiment before they enter into the real environment. For example in medical surgery
or flying a plane, students can get hands on experience before they experiment it real.[6]

E-Commerce: The semantic technologies will help organizations to show their products and services
in application interpretable manner. An agent in the semantic web receives preferences from the user,
collects data from the web, compares the data with other alternatives based on the context and gives
results to the user.
 Search for products in the internet [7]

The key challenge in semantic based e-commerce is that anyone can publish information on products
and services. So there should be mechanism which should take care of authenticity of the
information.

Pervasive Web: A web that is not only in desktops, mobiles but everywhere. At MIT Media Lab, Maes
[8] is with the idea of Web connected bathroom mirrors. As you wake up in the morning, there will be
latest news. Alex Soojung-Kim Pang [9] thinks of web as „automating the things in home‟. For
example, windows could automatically close depending on the weather changes.

6. Challenges

Having discussed lot of key trends, developments and the future of web 3.0, we need to address the
real challenges that will come up within the next few years.

New privacy and security concerns: With increased levels of information, new technologies which
can integrate, link, structure data, and more use of devices, there is a new concern for the protection
of data. Formation of new applications which connect both private and public data brings lot of
security issues which are more complex than present ones. Particularly, we have seen many cases of
data, information, images being stolen and are misused for variety of reasons. On the other hand,
with the help of sophisticated services brought by web 3.0 there can be better identity management
and data security solutions. Applications which are built on the semantics can help the user by
indicating malicious sites or softwares. Online communities can provide security training and practical
solutions to policy makers, individuals, and business leaders. Businesses should redefine their
security policies for the benefit of both its assets and customers.
Challenges in semantic web services: There are many weaknesses and threats in these services.
Some of them are:
 Difficulty in describing semantics.
 Unclear cost and benefits for businesses
 High Initial Learning costs
 Difficulty of mastering ontology evolutions
 Lack of clear-cut specifications as technology and requirements keeps on changing.

Challenges for Ubiquitous Web:

Device Recognition: On one hand there is huge development in applications and
technologies, but on the other hand even the most advanced devices and handsets are
incompatible due to the lack of certain hardware and software. [10]

Beyond Web 3.0:

 According to Nova Spivack, a technology expert, the focus in web 3.0 will be on redefining
infrastructure to support the advanced capabilities of Web 3.0 browsers. Once this phase
ends, we enter Web 4.0 where the focus will return to development of new programs that use
Web 3.0 as the foundation.
 The web will be transformed to a three dimensional web.

Source: MetaWeb graph (Spivack, 2004)

  The Web will build on developments in distributed computing and lead to true artificial
intelligence.
 Each user‟s software application learns more about the user through his browsing activities
and this will lead to more security concerns.
 All the media forms and entertainment services will rely on Web, making the biggest social
media revolution.
 In a future perspective, given that Semantic web technologies are well formed as a mode of
describing things, we could use their representational power to describe things in the real
world.
 As we represent the physical objects through meta data, they will become more accessible
through web.
 Web Sites will become web services and will effectively show their information to the world in
an intelligent way.
 The web will be everywhere. Everything from watches to air conditioners will be connected by
Web and there is much control and automation to come for these devices.

7. Conclusion

This discussion began with evolution of web, recent developments in web 3.0, impacts of web 3.0 in
business, various applications of web 3.0 and its challenges. Predicting the future is not an easy task
and there are many limitations and risks involved in it. We need a more rational approach in
understanding the web 3.0 applications to predict the future of Web 3.0. The evolution of Web 2.0 to
Web 3.0 will largely depend on the adaptation of solutions focused towards meeting the demands of
the user. Upcoming web 3.0 applications use semantics to increase the functionalities. If the
semantics fail to add value, the application or site will be just similar to a Web 1.0 or 2.0 site. Although
many aspects of the semantics are still to be explored, this technology is the key player in the creation
of Web 3.0. The technological framework for businesses and E-commerce is being developed.
Businesses need to adapt to the changes that Web 3.0 brings in, to provide effective solutions to
customers. Whether we see a significant change in social media, video web, search engines or not,
Web 3.0 will surely change the way in which individuals live and businesses operate in the next
decade.
References

[1] S.Spalding. ( 2007, July 14). How to define Web 3.0.How to split an atom. Available:
http://howtosplitanatom.com/news/how-to-defineweb-30-2/
[2] J. Calacanis. (2009, June 22). Web 3.0 Official definition.
http://calacanis.com/2007/10/03/web-3-0-the-official-definition/
[3] E. Schmidt. (2009, May 27) Web 2.0 vs 3.0 Available at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0QJmmdw3b0
[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Wave
[5] Creative Internet (106 Things)

[6] The emergence of the exciting new Web 3.0 and the future of Open Educational Resources.
Jose Bidarra

[7] The Impact of Semantic Web on E-Commerce – Karim Heidari

[8] ambient.media.mit.edu/approachable/approachable.pdf

[9] http://www.future2.org/2010/10/the-tetlock-gambit.html

[10] Social Networks – Challenges of Ubiquitous Web Access – Vadym Kramar