Concept 2.0

I'm not sure there is much debate as to whether the semantic web is the future and whether the next step is web 3.0.

The real question is, what name is it going to go by? Is the semantic web actually going to be re-named to web 3.0 by popular adoption?

I have a feeling this would be a bad idea for several reasons. For a start, the semantic web is a huge step forward. Web 2.0 wasn't. I love web 2.0, but it wasn't the huge step forward that the semantic web *should* be.

Secondly, even though this is really the same point, it gives the idea that web 2.0 is the progression from web 1.0. It is, sort of, but it is really just a new way of thinking rather than the next step.

Last year, it's widely believed (although there doesn't seem to have been any official announcement) that Google started blocking requests to get a site's PageRank.

Yet have a search around and see how many sites are still offering PageRank checking. Am I missing somrthing?

While I'm constantly reading about the dozens of web 2.0 social networking sites that launch daily, I rarely hear about them closing down and just generally crashing and burning unless it's major news. But are they are still going? There are so many launched I wouldn't have thought so.

So I think it would be quite interesting to see the failure rates of these sites. I'm almost tempted to set up a site monitoring them to see how long they last.

I was watching some pointless show at like 4am the other day which involved people who wanted to find dates going on this show and you could phone and text in and speak to them and they could communicate with you back. In between this the presenters talked to the various people looking for dates.

One thing got me thinking about this - this reaks of Web 2.0. But on TV.

After all, who is to say this new user-based community orientated  thinking should be confined to the web? TV has recently seen a massive rise in interactivity, with digital bringing loads of extra content to TV channels, Tivo is putting the user in control and while phone in votes are nothing new, they have seen a massive rise in recent times.

Take for example music channels too. These are almost exclusively controlled by viewers who send in their song requests by texts and the videos played are (presumably) those selected by the people viewing the channel - i.e. the users. Indeed, these types of things were around before the Web 2.0 buzz so perhaps TV 2.0 was the original revolution.

Too many people have a hate of Web 2.0. So many people have a problem with it. "Don't talk to me about Web 2.0." Why though? To be honest, it's not an overused buzzword. Because there is loads of Web 2.0 going on at the moment. Sure we still don't really know what it is, but we do know that we are doing it :p.

Besides, it's new there is bound to be plenty of start-ups and because of this there is justification for going on and on about Web 2.0. If you want to moan about an overused buzzword, moan about blogs. Everything has to be a blog these days! You can't have a new section, updates, journal, the list goes on - everything has to be called a blog these days. Web 2.0 is still for the most part just used for actual Web 2.0.

Had an interesting discussion with a friend of mine today. He really hates Web 2.0 so featuring on this blog makes for an interesting decision. But he makes a good point. Basically he things this.

Web 2.0 relies on people. People are idiots.

Which is a good point really. User's can't be trusted to create good quality non-illegal non-pornographic non-copyright infringing content. Which is a problem faced by many of the big sites - attracting advertisers is hard when your content is essentially really, really bad.

Every day another million or so social networks launch. Ok, that's not a real figure, I am of course just being sarcastic but it feels like there are loads of new sites launching. That's great but do we really need them all? The obvious answer is no. It's also the right answer. There are way too many social networks launching.

The problem is, Web 2.0 is really good but too many people are looking at it from the wrong perspective. Web 2.0 is basically a new way of looking at things and doing things. It doesn't mean that you have to launch a whole new site for it. Why not just add it to your existing site.

For instance on one of the site's I've just launched, Bring Back My Favorite Show user's have profiles and will eventually be able to have friends, a simple picture and editable information about themselves. It's a nice feature to add on to the site that would have gone ahead anyway if it hadn't occured to someone to put that kind of features in. It doesn't need to be a stand-alone product. Because when you make it one you're all about the social networking and you're new cool tech start-up is just one in a million most of which will be dead fairly soon.

Come on seriously now, there are two many of them. Every activity, media type, religion, etc, etc now has it's own niche social network. How many niche social networks do you use? Probably very few. Why use any more than one? Ideally we probably would if all our friends were on it and all the features. Nobody wants to use more than one.

Yet for some reason they keep getting funding. People are still putting millions of dollars into these new social network start-ups that offer nothing new. How are they planning to make money? They aren't going to get the traffic. If things continue like this, I can see another bubble that's going to burst.

Most of the Web 2.0 start-ups are launching widgets for MySpace and other social networks because of the power these networks have to reach a lot of people. But so far it's just companies offering what they already offer in widget form.

So far there isn't much in the way of start-ups designed around the idea of offering a variety of widgets. Is it just me or is that a a major business opportunity?

I can understand why people wouldn't want to base a large business plan around it. After all it's leaching off other businesses. Photobucket and to a lesser extent YouTube do this but then YouTube is very much free standing, more so than it's widgets and Photobucket isn't going to die if the social networking trend does.

It still has a lot of potential though. After all, the  social networking scene isn't likely to go away any time soon. It's changed a lot recently but widgets can easily be transfered across sites as people move around between Friendster, MySpace, Bebo, etc.

And it's not like the whole social networking thing started with Friendster either. It combined it with Web 2.0 perhaps but Yahoo and MSN have long had profiles plus people can always use widgets on personal web pages and blogs.

About a month ago I got into a discussion with a college over the future of the web, most notably where the next revolution on the web would be. Namely, the idea of the Semantic Web. The thing is though, if Web 2.0 is all about AJAX, integration and so forth, does this mean the Semantic Web will be Web 3.0?

Although of course the problem is that Web 3.0 already has substance to it. So if you really want to get ahead of the game you need a Web 4.0 start-up ;).