The future of the Web is a hot topic.

So
whats in store for it over the next decade?
Web 3.0
t
he answer, very simply, is
Web 3.0. Yes, in case you
hadnt noticed, the Web now
comes complete with version
numbers. Were currently in
the second decade of the Web, more
popularly known as Web 2.0, after
Dale Dougherty, one of the co-founders
of OReilly Media, came up with the
term in late 2004. After 2.0, it naturally
follows that there must be a 3.0 thats
newer and better. To speculate on what
may be the dening features of 3.0, one
must rst understand what 2.0 is all
about. 2.0 mainly refers to how both
programmers and end users interact
with the Web. While 1.0 was dened
by content that was mostly static and
published by a few select publishers,
What Is In Store For The Web?
1. Semantic Web
Many people, including the
father of the Web, Tim Berners-
Lee, believe that this will be the
next big innovation. Semantic
Web essentially views the Web as
a large globally-linked database.
Te problem with data on the Web
today is that it is all in HTML
(HyperText Markup Language),
which is all about syntax, and not
semantics. Tis makes it hard for
machines to understand and do
more meaningful computations
using this data. Te semantic
Web is about enabling machines
to understand the data better,
and to do useful things with this
understanding. One application of
the semantic Web would be a much
richer search. Rather than searching
only for plain old keywords as we
do today, search algorithms will be
able to make use of the fact that a
particular term is a city or another
term is a song name. Adding
natural-language queries to the
semantic Web yields interesting
queries that are simply not easy to
serve today. For example, you will
be able ask a query like Which
Indian presidents hailed from the
South? and directly get the answer
in your rst link. Another possibility
is to be able to search for media
not with keywords, but with other
mediafor example, to nd a song
simply by humming it.
2.0 is about end users becoming
publishers through blogs, wikis,
social networking sites and what
have you. Te best example to help
tell the dierence is Encyclopedia
Britannica or Encarta vs Wikipedia.
In addition to enabling end user
publishing, user interactivity,
dierent media, and richer user
experiences through AJAX, Flash,
and more recently Silverlight, are all
important parts of 2.0. And, from
a programming model perspective,
we have entered the world of Web
service application programming
interfaces (APIs) and mashups/
composite sites, during this phase.
So whats next? Here are some
possibilities.
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2. Much richer media and user experiences
Connection speeds are getting faster and faster. In the early 90s, we were
limited to 50 Kbps. Were now up to 1 Mbps, and by
the end of this year, Comcast, the second largest ISP
(Internet service provider) in the US, is looking to
deliver 100 Mbps to a portion of its market. By 2010,
we will be able to download a high-denition movie in
minutes. Higher bandwidth, coupled with the fact that
streaming technology and digital rights management
are both improving constantly, will enable us to soon
view any TV programme from any country live, via
the Web. In addition, very rich and immersive experiences that are primarily
reserved for client-side applications today will be possible on the Web.
3. Ubiquitous data mining and prediction engines
We have recommendation engines, from the likes of NetFlix
and Amazon, which predict what users may like, based on their
own history and the history of similar users. We have
technology that predicts future changes based on past
historye.g., Farecast. Technology for mining and
predicting will become more and more common
over time. For instance, you may be able to get
suggestions on blogs or news articles that you like,
based on the current blog that you are reading. Even
search results may be customised to your likes and dislikes.
If you and I issue the same search query, we may get dierent
results based on certain parameters that are mined, inferred or
otherwise provided. Tere could be an entire industry around prediction
imagine being able to use technology to predict what the next big music or
movie hit is going to be!
4. The cross-lingual Web
Today, most websites are in a single language
(possibly with the exception of news providers).
Because of this, what you can read in English is mostly
disjoint from what you can read in Hindi, Tamil or
Japanese. Automatic machine translation is getting to
a point where we may soon be able to read any site or
blog in the language of our choice, rather than what
the author chose to publish it in. To complete the
cross-lingual experience, search will also evolve to nd results not only in the
native language of the query, but also automatically translated content from
other languages, thus enabling the Web to be truly worldwide.
5. Devices and location
sensitivity
A majority of current websites/
services today are not sensitive
to user location. As browsers
move into more devicesnot
just phones, but also wrist
watches, home appliances, etc,
locationbased scenarios will
become increasingly important.
Not only will the current location
be emphasised in your browsing
experience, it may be possible that
you only get to see certain pieces
of content based on your current
location, or based on your current
device. One example of such a
scenario is shopping alertssay
you need to
buy vegetables
(which you
have previously
recorded in your
to-do list on your
computer) and
you are driving
by a grocery
storeyou could
get an alert as a
reminder. Taking
this one step
further, your car console, which is
also on the Web, could alert you
that you are low on gas, as you
drive by a gas station.
B. Ashok
The author is DirectorAdvanced Development and
Prototyping at Microsoft Research India
Many of these predictions are based
on nascent trends, and on research that
a number of companies have already
started investing in. While no one can
exactly predict what the real highlights
of Web 3.0 will be, one thing is certain
to happenit will evolve at some point
to Web 4.0!
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