Web 3.0 thinks for the people

Apologies if I’m behind the cutting edge kids here, but for me, it’s only just become official – Web 3.0 is well and truly on its way, if not already here.

For tecchie geeks, the word “semantic” in terms of the web has been around for a while now – in terms of the way a website is built – Web 1.0 was based on a graphical paradigm, Web 2.0 on a semantic paradigm, which essentially means Web 1.0 sites were like a photograph, you can’t select individual text or images etc, where as Web 2.0 is made of layers that you can interact with independently.

But now here comes Web 3.0, also being referred to as semantic web. Basically the leap in the technology now is that the processes behind whichever service you are using (expect to see Google trounce the competition with this one too…) will be able to make intelligent and intuitive leaps from the input you give it, as Johnathan Strickland suggests here:

“Web 3.0 will make tasks…faster and easier. Instead of multiple searches, you might type a complex sentence or two in your…browser, and the Web will do the rest…you could type “I want to see a funny movie and then eat at a good Mexican restaurant. What are my options?” The…browser will analyze your response, search the Internet for all possible answers, and then organize the results for you.” (http://computer.howstuffworks.com/web-30.htm)

This is on the verge of being real with the advent of Wolfram|Alpha – which I’m not going to attempt to explain here, follow the link…

But how could this impact the cultural sector? Well if you missed out the quote above, it will be absolutely relevant to advertising your programming. Marketers and communications teams are going to have to make sure their shows and exhibitions are correctly tagged to appear in these sorts of vague queries. Who’s to say “a funny movie” will only list the latest Jim Carrey blockbuster? Why not the Lavender Hill Mob at the BFI?

Welcome to the future. And here are a few sites where I recommend that you can keep an eye on it:

http://www.web3beat.com/
http://www.internetevolution.com/
http://semanticweb.org/wiki/Main_Page
http://semanticexchange.com/ (currently in development it seems…)