Gartner Touts Web 2.0, Scoffs At Web 3.0

An anonymous reader writes to mention that even though Web 2.0 is just now starting to gain widespread acceptance, there are those who are already trying to hijack the term Web 3.0. According to Gartner, there are quite a few new technologies and incremental modifications to existing Web 2.0 technology, but nothing that could equal the level of fundamental change exhibited by the shift to Web 2.0.

Shif?

:O

Re:Shif?

Web 3.0 is muc faste becaus i drop extr letter. Paradig shif.

Or maybe everything old is new again, and it's merely shorthand for the Web.

Yes, but...

Web 4.0 is even better!

Wrong Increment

Web NT follows 3.0

Web ME will be a more family and consumer friendly web.

Web XP will be the new Experienced Web.

I felt a disturbance in the web, as if a thousand geeks cried, "Don't give them any ideas, you f*&$king moron!

Re:Wrong Increment

My Web goes to 11.0! No, no, you don't get it... IT GOES TO 11.0!!!!!!! Most just go to 10.0.

Re:Yes, but...

Web 2.0 = Broken and slow.
Web 3.0 = ?Not working at all?

Does web 4.0 actually remove information from your brain?

I've said it before and I'll say it again: If I can't get to the information I'm looking for it doesn't matter how pretty it is.

Web 2.0? 3.0?

Screw this. I'm waiting for Web 3.11 for Workgroups.

Not to worry

even though Web 2.0 is just now starting to gain widespread acceptance, there are those who are already trying to hijack the term Web 3.0.

Well pity on them, because little to they know that the version numbers for the internet do not increment by one, they double. So the next version will be 4.0.

Bah.

Everyone knows that the first few versions tend to be buggy and not worth using. I'm waiting for Web 3.11 for Workgroups.

And next week...

...Gartner will proclaim the wonders of Web 3.0 after someone blows a monthly expense account on a Gartner "analyst".

Useless whores.

The meaning of life?

I have at what version of the web will we understand the meaning of life the universe and everything? Web 42.0!

Well there goes web 0.9.2.1.1

Darn - and I was still waiting for Web 0.9.2.1.1 for Gentoo to recompile... I just finished downloading it last night on my 19.2 modem.

hype

but nothing that could equal the level of fundamental change exhibited by the shif to Web 2.0.

Which is? That lots of webpages are way more annoying now and their layout will break completely if you're not using the exact browser they were designed with? Oh wait, we don't have those problems anymore, right? Yeah, right...

Sorry, but Google Maps is one of the very few places where "Web 2.0" actually gives me something that wouldn't have been doable in "Web 1.0". Most places just use it as "look it moves"-type eye-candy.

Wake me when people are using "Web 2.0" to make their sites more useable, instead of just more shiney. Those that do are still a tiny minority. Until then, shut up about higher version numbers. Bugfix the old one first.

Re:hype

The trick is that there are two aspects to Web 2.0. There's Ajax (and things that look or act like Ajax), which does tend to be used badly in many cases. (I would argue that being able to get new data without a page reload is a positive for usability, but you're free to disagree.)

The second aspect is more social: where Web 1.0 focused more on a one-way "I write this page, then you read it" exchange, Web 2.0 encourages multi-way communication, and users contributing content. While this idea isn't exactly new, it's something that's really caught fire recently, and if you actually read the article you'll notice that they're talking about wikis and social networks, which aren't Web 2.0 in an Ajax sense so much as Web 2.0 in a social sense.

So yeah, you can wake up and go look at Wikipedia now.

Re:hype

But then where is the transition? Where is "Web 2.0" where there wasn't one before? The first Wiki was invented in 1994. There were other, similar systems 10 years before that.

Social websites aren't any news, either. It's just that they're suddenly popular and everywhere. Sure MySpace is new, but there were sites much like it 10 years ago. Ok, maybe 8. Actually, thinking about it, I dimly remember a "social website" like thing back from my BBS days.

So what is "Web 2.0" if not Ajax etc.? Is it a phase, a trend? iTunes is something that's at least as new, if not more so, than MySpace, but it's not counted in the "Web 2.0" thing, is it? Why not? What about Amazon? The reader reviews are often very useful. Other community product review sites have been around at least since the CEO of my dot-com company started one about 6 years ago.

So, really, when you look at it, what is "Web 2.0", except hype?

Re:hype

There's nothing new about the "social" aspects of Web 2.0. Maybe it's the business model: we'll have no content and make money by showing people ads to look at their own content. No, wait, that's old too. Geocities and Angelfire had that in the 90's (and had their flare of hype then turned into a stinking swamp just like MySpace).

The ONLY thing new about Web 2.0 is the AJAXy aspect. Someone overreacted on that one, came up with Web 2.0 and then all the other stuff was added, by people who apparently aren't familiar with history, to justify such an inane term. Or maybe it's because somebody want's to justify another web bubble.

Re:hype

"Web 2.0" doesn't mean anything. Google Maps is just a website. It uses javascript and iFrames to achieve something approaching an application. Those two pieces of technology have been around since HTML4 was first conceived.

Web 2.0 ?

Anyone even know what Web 2.0 means?

Re:Web 2.0 ?

Nothing at all. It is a colloquial term, like AJAX. It refers to any number of things, from social networking to web apps, as long as it is done without applets. I think.

Re:Web 2.0 ?

Anyone even know what Web 2.0 means?

Loosely translated it means "vacuous buzzword that vendors slap on products, along with a fresh coat of paint, so they can sell the same old same old for more money; except in the case of vendors with new products, who slap 'web 2.0' on their products in an effort to be 'buzzword compliant;' or in the case of book, article and blog writers, it's a term they use to make themselves sound more sophisticated and 'in the know' than they really are."

Re:Web 2.0 ?

Web 2.0 is everything that was only practical on an intranet 5 years ago, but is now practical across the internet.

Except now we have the XMLHttpRequest object, and no longer need to resort to things like modal dialog windows, hidden frames and web bugs to achieve these effects.

That pretty much sums it up.

Re:Web 2.0 ?

What you describe doesn't sound like democratically created content.

When the shift goes from "I make a web page and put it on my server" to "I give you my creation and you put it on your site.", that sounds more like a step away from democratically created content and a step towards centralized big media.

You want democracy online, you're looking at something more along the lines of

1) Everyone with a computer has a server on it that they are not obligated to pay commercial prices for.
2) Everyone with an internet connection has a static IP address and at least one fully qualified domain name.
3) Internet service providers are not permitted to enforce terms of use that preclude hosting.

Everything that is happening with the Web these days is taking us further away from this, not closer towards it.

spoon

Do not try to understand or comprehend web 3.0. That's impossible. Instead only try to realize the truth: there is no web 3.0.

Heck, there isn't even a web 2.0.

blogosphere?

So does this mean the blogosphere will become the blogohypersphere? More dimensions makes it better.

A Return To Fundamentals

HTML 3 & 4! CSS? AJAX? RAILS? What is this nonsense? No no, I will take my tables with a hint of information > pretty colors, healthy servings of pure .txt FAQ's within inline Frames, non threatening bullet list navigations in side frames! Max resolutions of 800x600!
GIF over PNG's Guestbook & counters over spamming comment parades
I am General Nitro, Son of Berners-Lee! Join me now and I will advocate for the early release of Mitnik! Web 2.0 will bow down before our glorious empire, and will be subordinates of the House Of /. !!!!!!

Spiteful? I report, you decide.

Screw this

My web site will now be a collection of text files.

Offline apps

For me Google Gears is the first sign of (ugh) Web 3.0... or at least, the next level of capability.

It's now perfectly possible* to build a database driven app that is 'installed' over the internet and will run _totally_ off line. You can run a background thread to do data syncing for you.

This is a really neat deployment method for a lot of apps - OS independent! - that don't warrant a full install process. You could build a web store that was available all the time for example, and grabbed current prices when on line and remembered your (selected off line) shopping list when you had a connection available again.

Obviously this would be of no use if we lived in a perfect world where connection was continuous, but out here where 3G doesn't work in tunnels and free public wifi is getting more, rather than less, rare, well designed off line capable web apps are a serious potential move forwards in usability and well worthy of a web x.? increment.

*Actually, it's been possible for a while but someone made a neat package to help you do it.

Web 10.75p1U6

That's right, I'm already planning Web 10.75 P1, U6. Get onboard bitches! This shit is gonna rock! Of the many improvements our biggest one is, blinking flash movies! That's right, not just flash, not just blinking text, but blinking flash movies!! It's gonna be HUUGEE!!

Wha?

What is this "web" you speak of?

pfft

There's still lots of fun stuff that can be done with Web 1.0... even on an iPhone. [pixelcity.com] (shameless plug)

Actually, what I'd really like to see would be a return to true Web 1.0 roots--you know, device independence, things like that. To be honest, the iPhone's method of shrinking web pages is just a not-so-elegant workaround. It's nice sometimes, but I'd prefer it if the iPhone just reflowed plain pages like this [gutenberg.org] to 320 pixels wide (without a viewport specified) like my Axim does.* (I say this as a happy iPhone owner and developer.)

* in landscape mode the iPhone just shows unstyled pages with no zoom, 480px wide, but in portrait mode it shrinks them. Which is fine for sites with columns but I wish it would just say "No styling info? Just show it at 1x" for really plain nothing-but-headings-and-paragraphs type pages.

Web 2.0...

... is just maketing drivel. Anyone who uses that term to describe anything in particular is talking out of their ass.

Gartner? Ugh

I'm sorry, but after an incident quite some time ago, I can no longer take anything the Gartner group says seriously. Back in freshman year of college, an assignment required reading an essay published by a Gartner analyst. The title was "When Ants Beat Spiders"(a shame I can't find my old copy of it). Basically, the work was over the limitations of spider based search engines. The analyst then suggested using an ant like model, to search "well traveled data paths and examine dynamic content". That's all well and good, but the writer made absolutely no attempt at even suggesting a basic approach to implementing this system. He made no attempt to define what a "well traveled data path" is, nor did he even explain how it would be possible to accurately gain data on dynamic content. In the end, the entire essay sounded like a dehydrated nomad in the desert saying, "Gee, wouldn't it be nice if we had an ocean nearby". After that debacle, I can never take any consultant seriously.

Web 2000!

Err... wait..

Web 2008!

Nah... Wait, I got it!

Web 3000!

Yes, yes, that will do just fine.

Obligatory Dilbert

Dilbert will have to change his "Anti-Meeting Spell." (See dilbert.com or the Sunday paper a couple of weeks ago)

Web 2.0 hrmph!

Bah, humbug!

Web 2.0 is just another meaningless marketing term to describe a bunch of seemingly wonderful javascript, blog and wiki, pages, invented by redundant, marketing imbeciles, in order to hoodwink incompetent .com "company" managers.

Anybody who declares their page as Web 3.0, (or even Web 2.0, for that matter), should have their page DRDoSd off of the internet. >:(

Especially as these so called Web 2.0 pages are simply over-bloated, badly-designed, poorly-laid-out, standards-incompliant, overrated, over-hyped, excessively-resource-intensive, specimens of electronic refuse, often totally devoid of useful content, and consisting of enough images and poorly written code to electrically power a small town.

Note how people who run frugal and efficient blogs, ajax pages, etc. NEVER refer to their page as Web 2.0, they are too wise to demean themselves so.

For the sake of the internet, web designers, please don't either copy these "sites", or pay art drop-outs to design your website, as doing so, will lead to the spread of this miasmic "Web 2.0", clogging up our screens and the networks with redundant and meaningless trifle.

Web 3.0? There hasn't been a real web 2.0 yet.

I'm sorry, but using the same technologies that have existed for years in shinier and more sophisticated ways does not a version shift make. Rather, we are talking about a sort of Web 1.4, or more accurately Web CVS20070924.

Web 2.0 will come when the very foundations of the web, HTML/XHTML, CSS, and Javascript, are shaken from the foundation (which, at least with CSS, is a long time coming IMO).

Isn't "web 2.0" a meaningless term?

I mean why are we still talking about it on /.?  It doesn't mean a god damned thing.

There we go with web 2.0 crap again.

"widespread acceptance" - WHERE, who, what ? the big boys, google msn and such ? do they even count as acceptance compared to millions of sites that constitute the internet ?

"the level of fundamental change exhibited by the shift to Web 2.0" - and WHAT are those for god's sakes ? placing streaming video in web pages ? just what ?

just what is 'web 2.0' for frigging christ's sake anyway ?

Web 2.0 looks like Web 1.0 in lynx

"I do not know with what kind of weapons World Web 3.0 will be fought, but World Web 4.0 will be fought with sticks and stones"

-Albert Einstein-

I just don't get it.

I'm still trying to like Web 1.0, never mind the over-hyped user experience that is 2.0. I'm probably a dinosaur, but I just don't get it.

Slow Down!

We don't even have Web 2.0 SP1 installed yet.

every site must be a wiki

Until every site out there is a wiki, we won't have a true Web 2.0 to play with, so talking about a Web 3.0 sounds like another marketer's attempt to grab the headlines (and they succeed).

Oblig

But will it run Linux?

Web 3.0 is the semantic web

I have seen several references to the Semantic Web as "Web 3.0". I have yet to see any researcher endorsing that term though, but it does sound like a good marketing term if the Web 2.0 gets good acceptance.

The Semantic Web should bring a big paradigm shift : the idea that every information should be labeled with meta-data and also the understanding that this can't be done by the average webmaster but that some sort of automation has to be done. This automation is of course the greatest challenge. The on-going joke is that "Semantic Web" is just a label for AI researcher from the golden age of AI to continue raising funds.

its something like erm ...

its something like erm ...

Web 3.0 technology suggests:

well yes! thats the word I am looking for

while (bloggers.pompous==1) web.versionNumber++;

I'm going to keep on using Web 1.0 until somebody shows me a Web 2.0 application that isn't a waste of precious kilobytes.

Dinosaurs

I swear a bunch of you still want to read web pages on Lynx, think the web is a glorified shared file system, and were happier with 1200 baud BBS'.

Life changes; get a helmet.

Web 2.0 is not just marketing drivel. It shouldn't be viewed pedantically as a "revision two-point-oh" of a piece of software. Mostly it's a label for the new wave of investment into the web, that mostly stopped in 2001 after the bust. Many stopped caring about the Web as a fertile ground for new experiences or businesses. So, Web 2.0 is a useful label for the qualitative change that's obviously happening on the Web today if you actually looked around at how many ways that *many more people* are interacting.

Just because we had interactivity in 1998 with Slashdot doesn't make it a "trend" that the mainstream users understood. It was a nerd site!

Consider
- Web 1.0 was the "World Wide Wait". Many more people have broadband now. That changes the design centre of web sites.

- Slashdot, BBS', etc. were not really used by your average teenager in the 1990's. They were used by techies. Today, almost every teenager is on Myspace or Facebook, or Youtube.

- With blogs & trackbacks, we're actually seeing a decentralized discussion forum on almost *every* piece of content on the web. That's quite different experience than centrally submitting stories to Slashdot's editors.

- With web 1.0, all the hype was how it was going to be like TV. Turns out that's not the case, it's much more participatory. Obvious to a techie, but Web 2.0 is the rest of the world waking up to that fact.

- In 1997, *most* techies who thought they knew better were trying bloody hard to turn the Web into CORBA. Today, that would sound ridiculous. The REST architectural style [uci.edu] was ignored for years, it's now becoming recognized as a major factor in the web's success.

- Most people didn't really "get" hyperlinks 10 years ago. There were lawsuits as to whether you could deep link! People wanted to force you onto their website, and keep you there, like a TV channel. Today, with Wiki's, Blogs, etc., everything is much more decentralized.

Interestingly, something like Facebook has pulled off an interesting balancing act, where links are pervasive, but you still stay on the Facebook site while exploring the games & applications that are all integrated.

Anyway, with any trend, the hype often outstrips the reality. The only important thing is that Web 2.0 implies "The Web is Back".

Re:Web 3.0? Meh...

My web goes to 11.0

Re:/. is full of freakin morons

no. i'm 25 and i come here during work to find out about new technology trends and what not. i always check the comments of articles i'm interested and all i ever see is "i got dibs on web 4.0!" or "i for one welcome our ...." it's just not funny. i come here hoping for intelligent conversation and what i see is far from that. i think i'll just read the articles from now and ignore all the moronic comments which makes up about 90% of the conversation here anyways.