Authors: Kecia Waddell, Prashanthi Selvanarayanan

Introduction to Web 3.0

Web 3.0 is an attempt at making web self-aware. Currently the web contains huge amounts of information. Web 3.0 attempts to create knowledge from this vast information that is available at our finger tips. Web applications can be personalized and they can fetch information that is being sought by cooperatively sharing or intelligently finding data.

The primary components include:

• the Semantic Web,
• web Operating Systems,
• mobile and geographic integration, and
• heavy identity-based services coupled with data and identity portability.

Nova Spivack, founder of Radar Networks, a leading Web 3.0 company, says it's useful to think about the web's development in ten-year cycles. In the coming third decade of the Web, Web 3.0 (2009 - 2019), there will be another shift in the search paradigm. This is a shift to from the past to the present, and from the social to the personal. Web 3.0 or 'the semantic web’ Mr. Spivack says, refers to the attempted radical overhaul of the basic platform of the Internet so that it 'understands' the near infinite pieces of information that reside on it and draws connections between them. If Web 2.0 is all about harnessing the collective intelligence of crowds to give information value, then Web 3.0 will be about giving the Internet itself a brain.

What Would Web 3.0 Be?

Definition:

• A good equation for defining Web 3.0

• Nova Spivick's best definition available for Web 3.0

Examples of Web 3.0 Services

An example of a Web 3.0 technology is 'natural-language search', which refers to the ability of search engines to answer full questions such as 'Which US Presidents died of disease?'

• Twine - A great interview with the maker of Twine about Web 3.0
• Freebase - A good description of the tool.
• This page has a list of Web 3.0 tools.
• Wolframalpha - A video describing the tool.
• Ubiquity - A Web 3.0 tool from Mozilla
• True knowledge – A review of the tool

Popular Web 3.0 Services

True Knowledge - A semantic answer engine that has the ability to search for keywords in content.

Getting Started

• The next generation of web search paradigm with web 3.0
  
• The Semantic Web: From Hypertext to Hyperdata
• The Meaning and Future of the Semantic Web
• How the WebOS Evolves
• Web 3.0 Roundup
• Gartner is Wrong About Web 3.0
• Beyond Keyword (And Natural Language) Search
• Enriching the Connections of the Web: Making the Web Smarter
• Next Step for the Web
• Doing for Data What HTML Did for Documents

Web 3.0 in Educational Settings

• Implications for education EDUCAUSE
• Educators and Web 3.0
• Education and the semantic web – A podcast with Jason Ohler

Additional Resources

a. If ‘Web X’ keeps progressing at the rate it is going, would ordering pizza be any easier than it is now?

b. Web 3.0 Criticisms and Fears: Users may need to give up privacy for relevancy:

• Personalised search - Holy grail or a crock?
  
• Wikipedia entry for semantic web-the primary component of Web 3.0
  

Extended Learning

• Some great presentations on Web 3.0
• Follow discussions and advancements of The Semantic Web Education and Outreach (SWEO) Interest Group on Facebook

References/Acknowledgments

• Education 3.0-What Web 3.0 can do for education?

• Image: Transition to Web 3.0
  
• Semantic Web defined by Nova Spivack
• Graph: Nova Spivack's Web 3.0 graph