iphone thumb iPhone extension of Web 2.0 or beginning of Web 3.0?

What is the Web 3.0, and when will it begin? We all know the present web 2.0 era very well and we’re all used to it in one form of the other. Collaborative applications, nice UI’s, interactive websites and social networks. To say that web 2.0 era has just reached its peak wouldn’t be wrong, as we have web applications providing their API’s so that developers can build on them and improve the user experience by creating Rich Internet Applications ( and also so they can slap on their advertisements and get rich ). We can snoop around in social networks as end users, and interact through huge number of ways possible, some even silly ( hint: Facebook superpokes ).

So, at present, the industry is kind of saturated, with developers and companies creating whole new interactive user experiences while trying to find every possible way of minting out cash from their applications.

What does the new iPhone bring us to then? The web apps developed for it are very close to what Web 3.0 has been described as by Eric Schmidt.

At the Seoul Digital Forum in May 2007, Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, was asked to define Web 2.0 and Web 3.0. He responded

Web 2.0 is a marketing term, and I think you’ve just invented Web 3.0.

But if I were to guess what Web 3.0 is, I would tell you that it’s a different way of building applications… My prediction would be that Web 3.0 will ultimately be seen as applications which are pieced together. There are a number of characteristics: the applications are relatively small, the data is in the cloud, the applications can run on any device, PC or mobile phone, the applications are very fast and they’re very customizable. Furthermore, the applications are distributed virally: literally by social networks, by email. You won’t go to the store and purchase them… That’s a very different application model than we’ve ever seen in computing.

The apps on iPhone wont be purchased by going to any store but through the apps application. The data on most of these apps would be stored in the cloud. And the apps although aren’t going to be distributed by email and social networks, they wont have to be bought from a store. An interesting bit to notice in all this is that while mobile devices have been mentioned by Eric and Jerry, the capability of location aware applications wasn’t predicted. Omnifocus, is one such app which combines a task list utility and GPS. Omnifocus will check where you are and tell you about all the electronics and gadgetry stores nearby if mentioned in your tasks, so you would never forget such tasks again. Another example is Loopt, an application that alerts you when your friends are nearby and allows you to share your location and photos with them. Citysense does a similar thing – in San Francisco area only, for now – it creates a heat map that shows how your buddies are moving through the city.

Granted, all this can be done on other devices as well, but iPhone as a platform has changed the game forever for mobile devices. The rich and natural interface it has provided has become a benchmark for all mobile devices in the cellular industry, whether it be Windows Mobile, Symbian or a Blackberry device. The apps on these platforms are being inspired from the iPhone as well now, and iPhone does all what they did only in a much beautiful interface now.

So, in my opinion the iPhone is a benchmark platform for present or future Web 2.0/3.0 services now. And if there is any doubt that the Web 3.0 era is still far off, the iPhone certainly can be regarded for bringing the Web 2.0 era to a whole new level. The new era, i.e. Web 2.5.

 

At the Technet Summit in November 2006, Jerry Yang, founder and Chief of Yahoo, stated:

Web 2.0 is well documented and talked about. The power of the Net reached a critical mass, with capabilities that can be done on a network level. We are also seeing richer devices over last four years and richer ways of interacting with the network, not only in hardware like game consoles and mobile devices, but also in the software layer. You don’t have to be a computer scientist to create a program. We are seeing that manifest in Web 2.0 and 3.0 will be a great extension of that, a true communal medium…the distinction between professional, semi-professional and consumers will get blurred, creating a network effect of business and applications.