Drawar

Tall, blonde, with a nice behind?

What makes you think it's 2.5 precisely — if those denominations make any sense at all in the first place?

As far as the question goes, I think we've all been there. The current web is interactive, personal and adjustable, the future will be open, portable and individual? Something like that? :)

Perhaps the question is wrong here. What do you actually think Web 2.0 looks like? There are some definitions, but many are pretty arbitrary outside of declaring there is a greater importance put in standards compliance and ease of use.

Maybe the question should be How much money will marketers spend trying to get you to buy into another arbitrary idea in a few years' time?

I think we're in 2.5.4.3. Oh, and it's beta, of course.

I don't think there is a web3.0, and I don't think there was a web 2.0. The web changes every minute of every day, all around the world.

How about: What do you think the web will look like in 2010?

Wow. You guys all have great responses. I just thought of web2.0 was a lot of things, but after thinking about it I just think it not any one thing or version. It's just there. As a giant cloud of ideas, creativity and all that other good stuff (porn).

Thanks for helping me realize that!

For those interested, I'm in a new media course, and my textbook for that class (New Media by Terry Flew) discusses this in its first chapter. Flew writes:

The core principles of software programs and Internet sites that conform to Web 2.0 principles are that they are:

- many-to-many in their connectivity

- decentralised in terms of control

- user-focused and easy for new users to use

- open in terms of their technology standards and their Applications Programming Interface (API)

- relatively simple and "lightweight" in their design, their administrative requirements and their start-up and ongoing development costs

- expected to evolve and change over time, as users make new modifications to the sites

Of course, Flew goes on to discuss that there are many others, like Ozone, that argue there is not even anything to debate here, because web 2.0 is not a tangible, existing thing, particularly because the web is so quick to evolve (or devolve).

I think it's just a misnomer. Rather than calling a site unique, easy-to-use and transparent, some have chosen to identify recent years' waves of new, quality (or sometimes lack thereof) sites as being the "next level" of the Internet. The problem is that there's no general consensus of what a web 2.0 site is. Is it Flickr? Is it MySpace? (If so, that means standards are out the window.) Is it Amazon? Is it a blog? Is it bright colors, minimalist design and big text, or do those things have nothing to do with it?

If one is to take Flew's bullet points as a possibility, I think it's quite obvious that there have been many sites in the past that have adhered to at least two or more of the principles. Equally obvious would be the fact that many sites today don't adhere to those principles.

So, to me, what's left is the idea that it is a misnomer, because it can't reliably identify what exists online today. It is, however, a term that marketers could easily run with, and have. I've seen a number of sites in the last year or so where people posted jobs that were titled things like "web 2.0 design required" or "web 2.0 site needed."

That hasn't occurred because it is a concept that requires intense technical and business-wise adherence to a set of good principles. That's occurred because people have gotten starry-eyed with some get-rich-quick scheme they recently read about in a book or online.

A blur between desktop and web. Thin clients are coming back!

Mick Hucknell... Sorry, couldn't resist ;-)

On another more sensible note, I think you need to think a little beyond the browser here.

In the world or modern web development we can no longer consider the browser as the end point of our product which is our content. More and more devices and applications are being released that can access our information and more importantly do not even require a browser to do so.

I personally hate certain buzzwords but can understand why people use them, there is more to consider than desktop apps online or big text sizes and reflected logo's.

Information is the basis of the web and in a lot of ways it is going back to it's roots where it is data-centric. Portable information that can be used by anyone so long as they have something that is connected to it and an interface to use it.

Really exciting stuff if you ask me, mash ups, api's, data indexing services, ambient devices are changing the way that we access our information and that poses the question.

Is the browser going to be the focus of what we are doing in 10 years time? I seriously doubt it but it's going to be a fun road ahead.

I am organising a conference on this very topic in April so please do come along if you can manage it, this topic just gets my mind racing and I hope I have given you some food for thought.

The Highland Fling 2008 - The browser and beyond

Exactly like it does now.

Shiny Chrome and lots of Carbon Emissions.

Hey, I agree with Alan here (Az) and I agree with the definition Lelia's prof gives: interactivity, participation, enhancement, all that... Even if we disagree about the exact definition we can all see what happened no?

Really, when I think of the web 10 years back... it sucked.

But, again, what Alan says, my head buzzes too when I think of finally getting outside of this browser box. Seriously, I'm not an expert, but when I think of what I've written myself, of what I've read... we really need to get away from this local app-centred approach and let the web be what it is: free, called on whenever needed (by runtime apps), everywhere... everyware?

Hey, Alan, if I could crash somewhere, I'd love to try and get there. Perhaps I could convince my boss to fork a hundred for the admission, who knows.

Web 3.0? If there ever was one, it would probably adhere to Tim Berners-Lee's vision of a semantic web. He's working his ass off to bring that vision to frution, and it's frankly quite exciting, if a little crazy. Imagine tagging and organizing everything the web has to offer, and make that readable to machines of just about every platform imaginable.

You'll know it's web 3.0 when your microwave starts talking to your PC, your dishwasher arguing with your router, and your TV refusing to start until the Blueray HDDVD wars are over.

UGH! Just what I need is a firewall issue with my Dishwasher!

and your TV refusing to start until the Blueray HDDVD wars are over

They're NOT?

I've always wanted a networkable microwave! I fooled people in college by running from IDE cables through the vents and into a hole in our wall into thinking I had.

My morning routine could be greatly streamlined if the fridge would pour me orange juice and the toaster oven could prepare a bagel.

I'm not sure about the cream cheese. I don't think I want to give SkyNet Jr. a knife.

I think that, like anything, a new "version" is when a great change happens. I really don't expect the web to change much for at least a year. I'm afraid there might not be a "Web3.0" because of people's computers. If Web3.0 is a great change from what older software and OSes were supposed to process than it'll be like cutting off half the world (maybe not half the world, but you get the idea).

Web3.0 will probably be something like integrating the real world into it. For instance, a live show or something similar. Maybe the website will be "live" in that people will be able to make changes on it in realtime.

But who knows! Technology is always changing!

Web 1.0 2.0 or whatever is just a marketing buzzword.

Nils, anytime man... if you can make it here you will be looked after like the god of words you are!

I believe that it will be a cell phone based internet. Or it could end up like the current traditional media. A few companies output the content from around the world to users.

We are already seeing some signs of this, where RSS feeds are aggregated together for a specific topic... say cooking. It won't take long until targeted ad serving as well as improvements in content suggestion algorithm mature to combine with RSS feeds.

It'll end up being targeted RSS feeds to each users based on their life and web browsing histories. Since it's hard for two people in a garage to take this to maturity due to bandwidth and web crawler research, I think the big media are going to end up controlling the few well made outlets.