TRENDS IN ICT

As the world of ICT continues to grow, the industry has

focused on several innovations. These innovations cater to

the needs of the people that benefit most out of ICT.

Whether it is for business or personal use, these trends are

the current front runners in the innovation of ICT.

CONVERGENCE.

Technological convergence is the synergy of technological

advancements to work on a similar goal or task. For

example, besides using your personal computer to create

word documents, you can now use your artphone. It can

also use cloud technologies to sync files from one device

to another while also using LTE technology which means

you can access your files anytime, anywhere. Convergence

is using several technologies to accomplish a task

conveniently.

SOCIAL MEDIA

Social media is a website, application, or online channel

that enables web users to create, co-create, discuss,

modify, and exchange user-generated content. According

to Nielsen, a global information and measurement

company, Internet users spend more time in social media

sites than in any other type of site. With this, more and

more advertisers use social media to promote their

product.
SIX TYPES OF SOCIAL

MEDIA

Social Networks These are sites that allow you to

connect with other people with the same interests or

background. Once a use creates his or her account, he

or she can set up a profile, add people, create groups,

and share content. Examples: Facebook and Google+

Bookmarking Sites These are sites that allow you to

store and manage links to various websites and

resources. Most of these sites allow you to create a

tag that allows you and others to easily search or

share them. Examples: StumbleUpon and Pinterest.

Social News These are sites that allow users to post

their own news items or links to other news sources.

The users can also comment on the post and

comments may also be ranked. They are also capable

of voting on these news articles of the website. Those

who get the most amount of votes are shown most

prominently. Examples: reddit and Digg

Media Sharing These are sites that allow you to

upload and share media content like images, music,

and video. Most of these sites have additional social

feature like liking, commenting, and having user

profiles. Examples: Flickr, YouTube, and Instagram.

Microblogging These are sites that focus on short

updates from the user. Those subscribed to the user

will be able to receive these updates. Example: Twitter

and Plurk

Blogs and Forums These websites allow users to post

their content. Other users are able to comment on the

said topic. There are several free blogging platforms

like Blogger, WordPress, and Tumblr. On the other

hand, forums are typically part of a certain website or

web service.

MOBILE

TECHNOLOGIES

The popularity of smartphones and tablets has taken a

major rise over the years. This is largely because of the

devices capability to do tasks that were originally found in

personal computers. Several of these devices are capable

of using high-speed internet. Today, the latest mobile

devices use 4G Networking (LTE), which is currently the

fastest mobile network. Also, mobile devices use different

operating systems:

1. iOS – used in Apple devices such as the iPhone and

iPad

2. Android – an open source operating system

developed by Google. Being open source means

several mobile phone companies use this OS for free.

3. Blackberry OS – used in Blackberry devices

4. Windows Phone OS – a closed source and proprietary

operating system developed by Microsof

5. Symbian – the original smartphone OS; used by Nokia

devices

6. WebOS – originally used for smartphones; now used

for smart TVs

7. Windows Mobile – developed by Microsof for

smartphones and pocket PCs

ASSISTIVE MEDIA

Assistive media is a nonprofit service designed to help p

eople who have visual and reading impairments. A

database of audio recordings is used to read to the user.

You may visit http://www.assistivemedia.org/ for several of

their audio recordings.

Cloud Computing

Cloud computing is being hailed by industry analysts as

the next big trend in information technology.

Companies want to ensure employees have the ability

to access and synchronize data both inside and

outside their company walls in a safe, effective and

timely manner. Technology firms like Microsof, Dell

and HP all offer resources that companies can use to

reduce IT costs and give employees greater

accessibility to proprietary company applications no

matter where they are. Google extends cloud

computing resources like Google Docs to personal

computer users who can also take advantage of this IT

shif. International Data Corporation says that revenues

for enterprise cloud applications reached $22.9 billion

in 2011 and are on track to hit $67.3 billion in 2016.

Smartphones and Tablets

Whoever believes that mobile phones are just for

talking probably doesn't own a smartphone or is not

taking full advantage of its many features. ABI

Research, a market intelligence company, predicts that

1.2 billion smartphones will enter the market from

2012 to 2017. As the years progress, smartphones

have been getting noticeably smaller and thinner. In

the tablet market space, Apple's iPad continues to

showcase incredible demand with 15 million iPads

shipped in the first quarter of 2012 alone. Users want

mobile devices that can not only entertain them but

also perform the many functions that were once only

possible on a PC.

Mobile Wallets

In conjunction with the rise of mobile technologies,

companies like Google, Visa and MasterCard are

bracing for a rise in mobile payment technologies or

mobile wallets. Juniper Research, a U.K. based

research firm, predicts that payments using near field

communication-enabled technology will be at $180

billion by 2017. Smartphone manufacturers are

ensuring newer phones that hit the market will have

NFC capabilities so that consumers can happily swipe

their phones to make a payment instead of using cash

or credit cards.

Server-Centric Computing

The demise of your work PC may wreak enough havoc

with your personal or business data to cause you to

burst into tears. In many instances, the documents,

applications and files stored on that PC can never be

recovered. Many companies have transitioned to a

server-centric -- or '"thin client" -- environment to

prevent these types of scenarios from occurring. In a

server-centric IT environment, all files, applications and

programs reside on the server instead of your PC,

allowing your workstation to serve more as a display

terminal rather than a storage unit. While this

technology is not essentially new, the proliferation of

employee mobile devices connecting to a company's

network has caused IT departments to revisit this

technology to more effectively secure and manage

company applications.
“ What is web 2.0?” We receive this question ofen. It likely

has as many answers as the number of people using the

term. However, since talk of web 3.0 has surfaced in the

last year or so, an entirely new level of confusion seems to

have set in. In this article, I’ll explain web 2.0 and web 3.0,

and how they apply to your ecommerce business.

I’ll start with the challenges that cause people to think in

terms of web 2.0 and web 3.0. Since these are buzzwords

and not clearly defined terms, think of this as an attempt to

describe the ever-changing web. I will borrow from Tim

Berners-Lee, director of World Wide Web Consortium and

the inventor of the World Wide Web (in 1989). His notion of

the “read-write” web is ofen used to describe web 2.0.

Web 1.0

The first iteration of the web represents the web 1.0, which,

according to Berners-Lee, is the “read-only web.” In other

words, the early web allowed us to search for information

and read it. There was very little in the way of user

interaction or content generation.

The first iteration of the web

represents the web 1.0, which,

according to Berners-Lee, is the

“read-only web.”

This was what most website owners wanted. They needed

a website to make their information available to anyone at

any time. I call this “brick-and-mortar thinking applied to

the web.” The web as a whole hasn’t moved much beyond

this stage.

Shopping cart applications, which most ecommerce sites

use in some form, fall under the category of web 1.0. The

overall goal is to present products to potential customers

— much as a catalog or a brochure does — to anyone in

the world. The web provides the exposure. It removes the

geographical restrictions associated with brick-and-mortar

businesses.

Web 2.0

We are now seeing the infancy of web 2.0, or the “read-

write” web as Berners-Lee described it. It’s the ability to

contribute content and interact with other web users. It has

dramatically changed the landscape of the web in a short

time. It has much potential. As examples, look at YouTube

and MySpace, which rely on user submissions. Web 2.0 is a

welcome response to web users, who want to participate in

the information.

There are many definitions of a “web 2.0 application.” For

example, there’s the perception that just because a website

is built using a certain technology (such as Ruby on Rails)

or because it employs Ajax in its interface, it represents

web 2.0. But that is not necessarily the case. Web 2.0, for

lay people, simply requires that users can interact or

contribute content.

Web 3.0

This leads us web 3.0 (extending the vague nomenclature).

By extrapolating Tim Berners-Lee’s explanations, web 3.0 is

“read-write-execute.” This is difficult to envision in its

abstract form. To illustrate, consider semantic markup and

web services.

Semantic markup refers to the communication gap

between humans and computerized applications. One of

the biggest challenges of presenting information on the

web is that applications cannot provide context to data,

and, therefore, can’t understand what is relevant. Through

the use of some sort of semantic markup (or data

interchange formats), data could be put in a form not only

accessible to humans via natural language, but able to be

understood and interpreted by sofware applications as

well.

While it is still evolving, this notion — formatting data to be

understood by sofware agents — leads to the “execute”

portion of the web 3.0 definition.

A web service is a sofware that supports computer-to-

computer interaction over the internet. Web services are

not new and usually take the form of an application

programming interface. The popular photography-sharing

website Flickr provides a web service whereby developers

can programmatically interface to search for images.

There are thousands of web services. Combining semantic

markup and web services can produce a web 3.0

experience — applications that can speak to each other

directly and interpret information for humans.

Not Obsolete

What’s important is that the naming conventions — web

1.0, 2.0, 3.0 — should not be taken too seriously. Just

because a website does not employ web 2.0 features does

not make it obsolete. Afer all, a small ecommerce site

trying to sell niche products may not have a business need

for users to submit content or to be able to interact with

each other.

Moreover, that small ecommerce site does not need to

upgrade anything — get new sofware or anything like that.

Web 1.0, 2.0, and 3.0 are abstract ideas. They describe

challenges that developers (and users) face on the web

and how to address them.

Web 0.0 – Developping the internet

Web 1.0 – The shopping carts & static web

Experts call the Internet before 1999 “Read-Only” web. The

average internet user’s role was limited to reading the

information which was presented to him. The best examples

of this 1.0 web era are millions of static websites which

mushroomed during the dot-com boom (which eventually

has led to the dotcom bubble). There was no active

communication or information flow from consumer (of the

information) to producer (of the information). But the

information age was born!

According to Tim Berners-Lee the first implementation of

the web, representing the Web 1.0, could be considered as

the “read-only web.” In other words, the early web allowed

users to search for information and read it. There was very

little in the way of user interaction or content contribution.

[…]

The first shopping cart applications, which most e-

commerce website owners use in some shape or form,

basically fall under the category of Web 1.0. The overall

goal was to present products to potential customers, much

as a catalog or a brochure does — only through a website

retailers could also provide a method for anyone (anywhere

in the world) to purchase (their) products. […]

Web 2.0 – The writing and participating web

Evolution Web 1 . 0 , Web 2. 0 to Web 3 . 0

The lack of active interaction of common users with the

web lead to the birth of Web 2.0. The year 1999 marked the

beginning of a Read-Write-Publish era with notable

contributions from LiveJournal (Launched in April, 1999)

and Blogger (Launched in August, 1999). Now even a non-

technical user can actively interact & contribute to the web

using different blog platforms. If we stick to Berners-Lee’s

method of describing it, […] the Web 2.0, or the “read-write”

web has the […] ability to contribute content and interact

with other web users. This interaction and contribution has

dramatically changed the landscape of the web […]. It has

even more potential that we have yet to see. […] The Web

2.0 appears to be a welcome response to a web users

demand to be more involved in what information is

available to them.

This era empowered the common user with a few new

concepts like Blogs, Social-Media & Video-Streaming.

Publishing your content is only a few clicks away! Few

remarkable developments of Web 2.0 are Twitter, YouTube,

eZineArticles , Flickr and Facebook.

There are many different views of Web 2.0 depending on

who you talk to.

[…] Developers ,[…], have a much more rigid definition of

Web 2.0 than average web users, and this can lead to
confusion [but I don’t go into this discussion.]

Web 3.0 – The semantic executing web

This in turn leads us to the rumblings and mumblings we

have begun to hear about Web 3.0[…]. By extending Tim

Berners-Lee’s explanations, the Web 3.0 would be a “read-

write-execute” web. However, this is difficult to envision in

its abstract form, so let’s take a look at two things […]that

will form the basis of the Web 3.0 — semantic markup and

web services.

Semantic markup refers to the communication gap between

human web users and computerized applications. One of

the largest organizational challenges of presenting

information on the web was that web applications weren’t

able to provide context to data, and, therefore, didn’t really

understand what was relevant and what was not. [..]. While

this is still evolving, this notion of formatting data to be

understood by sofware agents leads to the “execute”

portion of our definition, and provides a way to discuss web

service .

A web service is a sofware system designed to support

computer-to-computer interaction over the Internet. […].

Currently, thousands of web services are available.

However, in the context of Web 3.0, they take center stage.

By combining a semantic markup and web services, the

Web 3.0 promises the potential for applications that can

speak to each other directly, and for broader searches for

information through simpler interfaces.

Web 3.0 – how, why and when. Kate Ray has made a good

documentary on web 3.0, and explains realy why we need a

semantic web and what the semantic web is all about.

Web 1.0, Web 2.0 and Web 3.0 with

their difference

Web 1.0 –

Web 1.0 refers to the first stage of the World

Wide Web evolution. Earlier, there were only

few content creators in Web 1.0 with the huge

majority of users who are consumers of

content. Personal web pages were common,

consisting mainly of static pages hosted on

ISP-run web servers, or on free web hosting

services.

In Web 1.0 advertisements on websites while

surfing the internet is banned. Also, in Web 1.0,

Ofoto is an online digital photography website,

on which user could store, share, view and

print digital pictures. Web 1.0 is a content

delivery network (CDN) which enables to

showcase the piece of information on the

websites. It can be used as personal websites.

It costs to user as per pages viewed. It has

directories which enable user to retrieve a

particular piece of information.

Four design essentials of a Web 1.0 site

include:

1. Static pages.

2. Content is served from the server’s file-

system.

3. Pages built using Server Side Includes

or Common Gateway Interface (CGI).

4. Frames and Tables used to position and

align the elements on a page.

Web 2.0 –

Web 2.0 refers to world wide website which

highlight user-generated content, usability and

interoperability for end users. Web 2.0 is also

called participative social web. It does not refer

to a modification to any technical specification,

but to modify in the way Web pages are

designed and used. The transition is beneficial

but it does not seem that when the changes

are occurred. An interaction and collaboration

with each other is allowed by Web 2.0 in a

social media dialogue as creator of user-

generated content in a virtual community. Web

1.0 is enhanced version of Web 2.0.

The web browser technologies are used in Web

2.0 development and it includes AJAX and

JavaScript frameworks. Recently, AJAX and

JavaScript frameworks have become a very

popular means of creating web 2.0 sites.

Five major features of Web 2.0 –

1. Free sorting of information, permits

users to retrieve and classify the

information collectively.

2. Dynamic content that is responsive to

user input.

3. Information flows between site owner

and site users by means of evaluation &

online commenting.

4. Developed APIs to allow self-usage,

such as by a sofware application.

5. Web access leads to concern different,

from the traditional Internet user base to

a wider variety of users.

Usage of Web 2.0 –

The social Web contains a number of online

tools and platforms where people share their

perspectives, opinions, thoughts and

experiences. Web 2.0 applications tend to

interact much more with the end user. As such,

the end user is not only a user of the

application but also a participant by these 8

tools mentioned below:

1. Podcasting

2. Blogging

3. Tagging

4. Curating with RSS

5. Social bookmarking

6. Social networking

7. Social media

8. Web content voting

Web 3.0 –

It refers the evolution of web utilization and

interaction which includes altering the Web into

a database. In enables the upgradation of

back-end of the web, afer a long time of focus

on the front-end (Web 2.0 has mainly been

about AJAX, tagging, and another front-end

user-experience innovation). Web 3.0 is a term

which is used to describe many evolutions of

web usage and interaction among several

paths. In this, data isn’t owned but instead

shared, where services show different views

for the same web / the same data.

The Semantic Web (3.0) promises to establish

“the world’s information” in more reasonable

way than Google can ever attain with their

existing engine schema. This is particularly true

from the perspective of machine conception as

opposed to human understanding. The

Semantic Web necessitates the use of a

declarative ontological language like OWL to

produce domain-specific ontologies that

machines can use to reason about information

and make new conclusions, not simply match

keywords.

Below are 5 main features that can help us

define Web 3.0:

1. Semantic Web

The succeeding evolution of the Web

involves the Semantic Web. The

semantic web improves web

technologies in demand to create, share

and connect content through search

and analysis based on the capability to

comprehend the meaning of words,

rather than on keywords or numbers.

2. Artificial Intelligence
Combining this capability with natural

language processing, in Web 3.0,

computers can distinguish information

like humans in order to provide faster

and more relevant results. They become

more intelligent to fulfil the

requirements of users.

3. 3D Graphics

The three-dimensional design is being

used widely in websites and services in

Web 3.0. Museum guides, computer

games, ecommerce, geospatial

contexts, etc. are all examples that use

3D graphics.

4. Connectivity

With Web 3.0, information is more

connected thanks to semantic

metadata. As a result, the user

experience evolves to another level of

connectivity that leverages all the

available information.

5. Ubiquity

Content is accessible by multiple

applications, every device is connected

to the web, the services can be used

everywhere.