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SECTION ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.0 Introduction

The current generations of Web applications (Web 2.0) have made them an

outright phenomenon in today’s society helping to redefine the way organizations and

individuals communicate and collaborate with each other. The purpose of this paper is to

conceptualize the evolution of Web technologies from a user perspective. This paper

attempts to enlighten the current generations of Web applications (Web 2.0) and also to

identify the architectural direction of that the next generation (Web 3.0) of Web

applications would meld itself into.

1.1 Definition Web 2.0

Over the recent past, the Web has been transformed from being a medium in

which information is transmitted and consumed, to a platform where content is created,

shared, altered and reproduced. At the same time differentiation between Web 1.0 and

Web 2.0 is not clearly defined. Indeed Sir Tim Berners-Lee1, creator of the World Wide

Web, has suggested that there is no real difference between the two, as some of the

elements of Web 2.0 were fundamental parts of Web 1.0.

The term “Web 2.0” peaked in popularity during the early part of 2007 and was

believed to have enormous potential in its features. However murky the definition of Web

2.0 may be, its underlying features emphasize flexibility of access, interaction, mobility,

multimedia capability, participation, informality and feedback. Though frequently these

terms are associated with Web 2.0, the technical developments are not its essence. Web

2.0 is instead associates to reference the transition of the World Wide Web to a new

phase of use and service development.

1 Sir Tim Berners-Lee (born 8 June 1955) is a British computer scientist, best known as the inventor of the World

Wide Web. He made a proposal for an information management system in March 1989, and he implemented the

first successful communication between a Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) client and server via the Internet.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Berners-Lee

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1.2 Definition of Web 3.0

From a humble beginning as a methodology used as machine interpretable data

through the new generation software, “Web 3.0” also known by its pseudonym as

Semantic Web2, has matured itself into a set of standards that support open data formats

whilst at the same time processes information that emphasizes information rather than

mere processing. The main idea behind the semantics in Web 3.0 was the creation of

Web content by not using natural language but a form of script that could be understood

and gauged by software agents in order to allow them to find, share or integrate

information much more easily and efficiently, meeting the first stepping stone towards

intelligent applications.

The focal aim of the Web 3.0 technology is to assist the web users to contribute

information in ways that computers can understand, process and exchange. These

developments in Web technology would enable the Web application to perform tedious

tasks like collating information from varied sources and assist users to search relevant

information according to their needs efficiently. This nature of versatile offering by

technology in the past few years has prompted a growing interest in the new generation

of Web, as indicated by the rapidly increasing number of semantic markup available on

the Web, the number of organizations starting to carry out research and development

activities in the area and by the number of Web 3.0 applications which now exist. All

these developments indicate that Web 3.0 is mirroring the same growth of the Web in the

early stages of its evolution, a strong signal that Web 3.0 is likely to become another

technology phenomenon.

The availability of Semantic markups would open up novel possibilities to

develop smart, web based applications and functionalities. Web 3.0 would bring

additional properties that would include micro formats, natural language search, data

mining, machine learning, recommendation agents and artificial intelligence technologies

which would emphasize the importance of machine facilitated understanding of

information.

2 The Semantic Web is a collaborative movement led by international standards body the World Wide Web

Consortium (W3C). The standard promotes common data formats on the World Wide Web. Source:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_Web

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SECTION TWO

WEB 2.0

2.1 Background of Web 2.0

Tim Berners-Lee’s vision of the World Wide Web (WWW) was for a tool which

created and gathered knowledge through human interaction and collaboration. Web 2.0 is

a stage of development in which the Web is progressing towards this goal. Most analysts

define Web 2.0 in terms of the tools that foster online participation in content creation

and social interaction. This tends only to produce lists of new software applications or

claims of ‘we are the web’, ‘web 2.0 is people’ etc.

The term “Web 2.0” was first used in January 1999 by Darcy DiNucci, a

consultant on electronic information design (information architecture). Writing when

Palm Inc. was introducing its first web-capable personal digital assistant, supporting web

access with WAP3, DiNucci saw the web “fragmenting” into a future that extended far

beyond the browser/PC combination it was identified with. Her vision of the web’s future

focused on how the basic information structure and hyper-linking mechanism introduced

by HTTP4 would be used by a variety of devices and platforms. As such, her use of the

“2.0” designation refers to a next version of the web that does not directly relate to the

term's current use.

The term Web 2.0 did not resurface until 2002. These authors focus on the

concepts currently associated with the term where, as Scott Dietzen puts it, “the Web

becomes a universal, standards-based integration platform”. John Robb wrote: “What is

Web 2.0? It is a system that breaks with the old model of centralized Web sites and

moves the power of the Web/Internet to the desktop.”

In 2004, Tim O’Reilly popularized Web 2.0 as an expression when he wrote a

fairly coherent definition. Web 2.0 is definitely the next big thing in the WWW. It makes

use of latest technologies and concepts in order to make the user experience more

interactive, useful and interconnecting. It has brought yet another way to interconnect the

3 Wireless access point (WAP) is a device that allows wireless devices to connect to a wired network. 4 The Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is an application protocol for distributed, collaborative, hypermedia

information systems. HTTP is the foundation of data communication for the World Wide Web.

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world by means of collecting information and allowing it to be shared affectively. It

definitely has a bright future with so many Web 2.0 based websites coming up. It is a

revolution in the field of computers and will definitely achieve far greater success.

The term Web 2.0 was initially championed by bloggers and by technology

journalists, culminating in the 2006 TIME magazine Person of The Year. That is, TIME

selected the masses of users who were participating in content creation on social

networks, blogs, wikis, and media sharing sites.

2.2 The Characteristics of Web 2.0

Web 2.0 websites allow users to do more than just retrieve information. Instead of

merely 'reading', a user is invited to 'write' as well, or contribute to the content available

to everyone in a user friendly way. By increasing what was already possible in “Web

1.0”, they provide the user with more user-interface, software and storage facilities, all

through their browser. This has been called “network as platform” computing.

Major characteristics of Web 2.0 include:

1. Information Search: Search engine helps in finding relevant information for the

keywords entered. It includes website designing, website ranking in search engine,

keyword research, etc.

2. Links: Low-barrier social tool. It includes one-way linking, link exchange, etc.

3. Authoring: This gives the right to create, publish and upload content, videos, audios

of your own. It includes blogs, press releases, articles, newsletters, etc.

4. Tags: These are one word descriptions of the entire content written by the owner.

5. Extensions: It is software that makes web an application platform as well as a

document server.

6. Signals: It is the use of syndicate technology that informs users of content changes.

RSS, Really Simple Syndication, is a tool from where you can get the latest updates

of your area of interest.

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2.3 Web 2.0 Technologies

Some specific Web 2.0 technologies are also important to understand. These

include:

Figure 2-1. Web 2.0

1. AJAX – An acronym derived from “Asynchronous JavaScript and XML”. AJAX is

an important underlying technology used to create interactive Web applications. Ajax

is what enables Web 2.0 sites to behave dynamically, so that they feel more like

computer programs than static web pages.

2. Atom – A format for the syndication of online content, atom functions as a newer

alternative to RSS (described below).

3. Blog – Originally derived from the word “weblog”, a blog is a simple content website

created with inexpensive self-publishing tools. Blogs are the backbone of Web 2.0’s

democratic spirit.

4. Mashups – Websites or applications that combine content from one or more sources.

For example, Cellreception.com combines Google Maps with a database of 124,000

cell phone tower locations to help users determine where mobile coverage is strong

and where it isn’t.

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5. RSS – Shorthand for “Real Simple Syndication”, RSS is a protocol that makes it easy

for computer users to receive content from their favorite providers whenever the

content is updated. Instead of having to remember to visit a website to read a favorite

column, watch a video, or listen to an audio program, RSS lets a user subscribe to the

content so it's delivered automatically. The flow of content the user receives is called

an “RSS feed”.

6. Social media – A generic term used to describe Web-based tools that harness the

power of collaboration and group interaction. This can take many forms, from the

personal web pages of MySpace to the virtual worlds of Second Life to the

professional networking popular on LinkedIn.

7. Tags – User-generated keywords used to describe online content. Tags make it easier

for both humans and search engines to find relevant and related information.

8. Wikis – A dynamic Web document that allows users to add, change, or edit the

content displayed on the page. The user-created Wikipedia online encyclopedia is the

most famous example.

9. XML – An abbreviation for “Extensible Markup Language”, XML is a programming

code for online data that preserves the structure and formatting of a digital document

regardless of whatever application is used to read it. XML is an important enabling

technology for RSS feeds (described above).

2.4 Example of Web 2.0 Websites

Here are the 8 Most Popular Web 2.0 Websites as derived from eBizMBA Rank

which is a constantly updated average of each website’s Alexa Global Traffic Rank, and

U.S. Traffic Rank from both Compete and Quantcast5.

5 http://www.ebizmba.com/articles/web-2.0-websites

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YouTube – It allows the users to upload their videos and share it with

everyone.

Wikipedia – It is online encyclopedia wherein the users contribute by

writing the articles, definitions, etc. It is completely edited and maintained

by the users.

Twitter – It is an online social networking and microblogging service that

enables users to send and read “tweets”, which are text messages limited to

140 characters.

Flickr – It is a photo sharing website which allows users to upload their

photographs and share it with anyone and everyone.

Instagram – It is an online photo-sharing, video-sharing and social

networking service that enables its users to take pictures and videos, apply

digital filters to them.

Tumblr – It is a microblogging platform and social networking website that

allows users to post multimedia and other content to a short-form blog.

eHow – It is an online how-to guide with articles and videos offering step-

by-step instructions. Users can leave comments or responses, but only

contracted writers can contribute changes to articles.

Photobucket – It is an image hosting and video hosting website, web

services suite, and online community dedicated to preserving and sharing

the entire photo and video lifecycle.

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2.5 Benefits and Drawbacks of Web 2.0

In all cases one-way

communication always lacks

efficiency. Due to many

disadvantages of Web 1.0, Web

2.0 came into existence. The term

Web 2.0 is usually associated

with web applications that help in

two-way communication. It is

basically a user-centered design

that is associated with terms such

as interactive, collaborative,

information/ knowledge sharing, etc. Earlier, only the advertisers, publishers and website

owners were allowed to share their knowledge and information in the worldwide web.

Today, it is more than just sharing knowledge and information. Web 2.0 gives the

freedom to each and every individual to post their thoughts, views, philosophies, likes

and dislikes. It is all about interaction, sharing and networking.

Now let’s discuss few of the pros and cons of Web 2.0:

PROS CONS

1. Social Media Marketing and Search

Engine Optimization.

2. Equal chance to all to post their

views and comments.

3. Increase the circle of friends and

contacts through social networking.

4. Latest update and content can be

received if you are a RSS reader.

5. Online promotion of businesses,

products and services.

6. Engaging the customers. Customers

can write their views about the

products and services.

1. Information overload. Too much

information is daily posted by many

people with different thought. This

creates confusion for the readers and

the quality of the content is not reliable.

2. Freedom to post views and comments

provides good opportunities for

competitors and rivals to post negative

comments about other companies.

3. Too many fake ID’s and spammers.

4. Forgeries and hackers commit crimes.

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Social media marketing is one of the biggest and most significant results of Web

2.0. Websites like Facebook, Orkut, LinkedIn, Twitter, MySpace, You Tube, etc are the

top visited websites. It is because networking is one of the most essential needs in today’s

world. Efficient networking is backed by internet. Thus, two-thirds of the total number of

internet users visit social media websites daily. It has become an addiction to many.

Again this brings many advantages and disadvantages along with it. Few of them are:

PROS CONS

1. Create a large and strong network.

2. Increase in number of friends.

3. More interaction leads to higher

exchange of knowledge.

4. Build strong relationships.

1. People are highly dependent on internet

to network.

2. Wastage of time.

3. High number of frauds and hackers.

People now-a-days are so addicted to update their Facebook and LinkedIn

accounts that they do not realize the amount of time they are spending in such activities.

According to a survey, every individual working in an organization spends an average

time of about 40 minutes daily on social media websites. This incurs loss to the

organizations as their valuable and knowledgeable employees are busy chatting online

with their friends. The organizations are taking the following steps to eliminate this

problem:

Organizations now-a-days block all social media websites.

They encourage employees to indulge in activities organized within the company,

where they can socialize and relax.

An interesting work environment can help employees to concentrate more on their

work.

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SECTION THREE

WEB 3.0

3.1 Background of Web 3.0

The semantic web or Web 3.0, introduced by Tim Berners-Lee in 2001, refers to

dispensing with the typical cost and hassle of installing and running certain software

programs and using the internet. While many people believe it is still far in the future,

Web 3.0 has already infiltrated our daily life in our normal use of Internet. Companies

such as Amazon and Google have been actively using Web 3.0 to attract customers, and

Facebook’s recent rendition of the “pages” has pushed web 3.0 to a new height and

awareness. Through the use of rating systems and products we’ve accessed, e-mail

subject scanning, the frequency of the music we are listening to, and the “Like” button,

the web is actively learning the preferences of the user and providing content that would

be most appealing to the user. The Internet is evolving around the user, and ultimately

would expand to appliances and other daily gadgets people use.

For many people, Web 3.0 is often called the Semantic Web, which, in essence, is

a place where search engines and software agents can better troll the Net and find what

users are looking for. According to Nova Spivack, the CEO of Radar Networks, one of

the leading voices of Web 3.0, it is a “set of standards that turns the Web into one big

database.”

3.2 The Characteristics of Web 3.0

While the concept continues to be identified, there are some basic characteristics

of Web 3.0:

1. Semantic Web – a web where machines read sites in a way similar to humans, and

seek out information based on the users’ set criteria to produce optimal result. For

example, the computer may check the person’s schedule against the available

appointment schedule of all dentists around the person in a 10-mile radius.

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2. 3D Web – a web that provides virtual reality surfing similar to that of 3D video

games or movies, giving viewers a more dynamic and realistic experience while

viewing the site’s material.

3. Media-Centric Web – a web where one uses a media to find other media, thereby

eliminating the use of keywords and the frustration of not knowing what to use to find

the information you need. One of the ideas within this concept is the Augmented

Reality, where users can use their cellphone to take a picture of the neighborhood,

and access the web to search for information regarding this particular location. It

increases the accuracy and eliminates wait time or guessing.

4. All-encompassing Web – or as PC Mag calls it, the “pervasive web”, a web that is

everywhere and surrounds every aspects of one’s life. Appliances, not just computers,

can be programmed and connected to the web, and provide a more luxurious,

anticipatory lifestyle to people.

3.3 Web 3.0 Technologies

There are actually several major technology trends that are about to reach a new

level of maturity at the same time. The simultaneous maturity of these trends is mutually

reinforcing, and collectively they will drive the third-generation Web (Web 3.0). From

this broader perspective, Web 3.0 might be defined as a third-generation of the Web

enabled by the convergence of several key emerging technology trends:

1. Ubiquitous Connectivity – broadband adoption, mobile internet access, mobile

devices.

2. Network Computing – software-as-a-service business models, web services

interoperability, distributed computing (P2P, grid computing, hosted “cloud

computing” server farms such as Amazon S3).

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3. Open Technologies – Open APIs and protocols, Open data formats, Open-source

software platforms, Open data (Creative Commons, Open Data License, etc.).

4. Open Identity – Open identity (OpenID), Open reputation, Portable identity and

personal data (for example, the ability to port your user account and search history

from one service to another).

5. The Intelligent Web –

Semantic Web technologies (RDF, OWL, SWRL, SPARQL, Semantic application

platforms, and statement-based datastores such as triplestores, tuplestores and

associative databases).

Distributed databases — or what I call “The World Wide Database” (wide-area

distributed database interoperability enabled by Semantic Web technologies).

Intelligent applications (natural language processing, machine learning, machine

reasoning, autonomous agents).

Figure 3-1. Web 3.0

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3.4 Example of Web 3.0 Websites

Today’s web has terabytes of information available to humans, but hidden from

computers. It is a paradox that information is stuck inside HTML6 pages, formatted in

esoteric ways that are difficult for machines to process. The so called Web 3.0, which is

likely to be a pre-cursor of the real semantic web, is going to change this. The

transformation will happen in one of two ways. Some web sites will follow the example

of Amazon, del.icio.us and Flickr and will offer their information via a REST API7.

Others will try to keep their information proprietary, but it will be opened via mashups

created using services like Dapper, Teqlo and Yahoo! Pipes.

Amazon – The Seattle web giant is reinventing itself by

exposing its own infrastructure via a set of elegant APIs. One

of the first web services opened up by Amazon was the E-

Commerce service. This service opens access to the majority of items in Amazon's

product catalog.

del.icio.us – It is also famous as one of the first companies

to open a subset of its web site functionality via an API.

Dapper – It launched a generic scraping service for any web

site. Dapper is an interesting technology that facilitates the

scraping of the web pages, using a visual interface.

As more and more of the Web are becoming remixable, the entire system is

turning into both a platform and the database. APIs are a more controlled, cleaner and

altogether preferred way of becoming a web service.

6 HyperText Markup Language (HTML) is the main markup language for creating web pages and other information

that can be displayed in a web browser. 7 Representational state transfer (REST) is an architectural style consisting of a coordinated set of constraints

applied to components, connectors, and data elements, within a distributed hypermedia system.

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3.5 Benefits and Drawbacks of Web 3.0

The potential benefits and drawbacks of Web 3.0 can be illustrated by showing

the advantages and disadvantages in the following:

ADVANTAGES DISADVANTAGES

1. Information categorized and

presented in a visually improved

manner that enhances interaction,

analysis intuition and search

functions.

2. Taxonomies – standardized and self-

describing classifications.

3. No software programs to install.

4. Web 3.0 browsers learn (artificial

intelligence) likes and dislikes and

would function as trusted advisor,

mentor and personal assistant and

less like a search engine.

5. Browsers will position themselves as

true lifestyle canvases, taking into

account cutting-edge concepts like

social bookmarking and in-group

searching to produce a much more

customized and targeted Web surfing

experience.

1. Search engine optimization practices

may undergo wholesale adjustments as

the different information and

architectural standards of Web 3.0 fight

for supremacy.

2. As with any new technology or

Internet-related development, personal

privacy issues will be at the forefront of

consumers’ consciousness.

3. Still a long way from reality because of

the number of technologies that is

involved.

4. New technologies that not all

companies are embracing yet

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SECTION FOUR

CONCLUSION

4.1 Summary

Web 2.0 changes the authoring of eLearning content and knowledge by providing

user flexible and friendly applications for developing, analyzing, publishing and sharing

the instructions and recourses. Machine processing of content, programs and people

relationships and advanced automation of an authoring process is possible using the

advantages of semantic technologies.In the paper the characteristics of social Web 2.0

and semantic Web 3.0 are identified. The benefits of the Web 2.0 and Web 3.0 authoring

tools are summarized and discussed. A number of key challenges and areas for

implementation which would enable more widespread adoption of semantic technologies

by authors are identified.

The semantic web or Web 3.0 presented in this paper offers a vision of a world

with unprecedented interconnectedness (that will) be an important part of everyday life at

some point in the future. Whether that point is the year 2020 as predicted by Tim

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Berners-Lee remains to be seen. Many technological changes will need to take place in

order to realize Berners-Lee’s vision. What is certain is that “massive improvements in

mobile computing and interconnectivity of remotely enabled devices coupled with Web

3.0 developments will result in the positioning of the Internet as “the world’s common

database”.

4.2 Conclusion

The main conclusion is that integration of Web 2.0 application design patterns

and Web 3.0 logics and knowledge management should give rise to a new and exciting

environment-the Social Semantic Web. In a Social Semantic Web, certain, formally

representable parts of human knowledge can be encoded and reasoned about via the tools

of the Semantic Web and it can also easily be maintained via the social, community-

oriented techniques of Web 2.0. Semantic technologies will guarantee the efficient search

of learning resources, information or services, automatic knowledge management,

accuracy consistency and integration, while Web 2.0 will guarantee the collaborative

human participation.

Although the web 3.0 is fast

developing its new system, we will probably

still be using the web 2.0 for some more

years now, as the data web use that web 3.0

proposes is still in its early stages. However,

it will slowly become an integrated part of

the web, and these new technologies will

allow for advanced infrastructures for better information and data through the web, which

will no doubt be more powerful than the existing web 2.0. It may be incredible to think

that there can be anything better than the web 2.0 where design was created to have a

great impact on the users, which it seems hard to surpass. However, the web 3.0 will be

focusing more on the type of browsing and not only on the different browsers used.

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